Mg3Y2Ge3O12:Bi3+ UV fluorescent phosphor as the TiO2 sensitizer for enhancing the heavy oil viscosity reduction

Nowadays, visible fluorescent materials based on rare earth (RE) and non-RE ions doping have been extensively explored for white LEDs. As for the UV fluorescent materials, it is well known that they are not suitable for the lighting applications. As a result, when compared to the visible fluorescent materials, previous works paid little attention to the UV fluorescent materials. In this work, we report a type of Mg3Y2Ge3O12:Bi3+ UV fluorescent phosphor. To understand the crystal structural information and photoluminescence (PL) properties of samples, we have used the X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electronic microscope (SEM), UV-visible diffuse reflectance and PL spectra to characterize them. The structural results reveal that the Bi3+ doped sample show their particle size at about 30 mu m. The PL results show that the Bi(3+)doped sample upon excitation at 230 nm can show a broad emission band that can almost cover the whole UV spectral region from 290 nm to 410 nm. Since this UV fluorescent band is exactly in agreement with the UV absorption region of TiO2 semiconductor, we have fabricated several Mg3Y2Ge3O12:Bi3+/TiO2-based ceramic plates and proposed used them to serve as an efficient UV irradiation source for photocatalytic application. As a result, we find that the TiO2 can exhibit the significantly enhanced photocatalytic property for the heavy oil viscosity reduction after adding the Mg3Y2Ge3O12:Bi3+ UV fluorescent phosphor.