Enhanced photocatalytic activities of vandium and molybdenum co-doped strontium titanate under visible light

In this report, undoped, mono and co-doped perovskite strontium titanate (SrTi1-(x+y)MoxVyO3) were synthesized by the sol-gel method, and their physical and optical properties were investigated. Furthermore, the photocatalytic degradation activities of the synthesized powders were conducted in 10 ppm methylene blue solution under visible-light irradiation. A maximum degradation efficiency of 91.5% was achieved in SrTi0.9Mo0.05V0.05O3 powder whereas only 59.9% of degradation was found in undoped SrTiO3. The improved efficiency in co-doped SrTiO3 was due to the doping of metal cations, Mo+6 and V+5 in the host lattice, which created impurity defect states thereby effectively reducing the bandgap energy of the semiconductor.