Synthesis of nanocrystalline of lanthanum doped NaTaO3 and photocatalytic activity for hydrogen production

Abstract

Sodium tantalum oxide doping lanthanum (La-NaTaO3) compounds were successfully synthesized by a sol-gel method and calcined at different temperatures. Tantalum chloride (TaCl5) was used as starting material and lanthanum nitrate (La(NO3)3.6H2O) as lanthanum source. X-ray diffraction (XRD) revealed that the calcination temperature strongly influenced the crystallinity of the prepared samples. The crystallite sizes of the resultant La-NaTaO3 were in the range of 27-46 nm. The photo catalytic activities of the samples were examined for hydrogen production from an aqueous methanol solution under UV light irradiation. It was found that the photocatalytic activity of the La-NaTaO3 depended strongly on the calcination temperature. The range of calcination temperatures were 500, 700, and 900°C. The La-NaTaO3 sample calcined at 900°C showed the highest photocatalytic activity compared to the samples calcined at the other temperatures. The rate of hydrogen production reached a value of 6.16 mmol h-1 g-1 catalyst.