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

Abstract In this report, undoped, mono and co‐doped perovskite strontium titanate (SrTi 1−( x + y ) Mo x V y O 3 ) 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 SrTi 0.9 Mo 0.05 V 0.05 O 3 powder whereas only 59.9% of degradation was found in undoped SrTiO 3 . The improved efficiency in co‐doped SrTiO 3 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.