Facile and Effective Synthesis of Praseodymium Tungstate Nanoparticles through an Optimized Procedure and Investigation of Photocatalytic Activity

Abstract

AbstractRegarding the importance of nanoparticles in today’s world, and in the light of the fact that their preparation can be a rather difficult task, we focused on the applicability of a simplistic direct precipitation approach for the preparation of praseodymium tungstate nanoparticles. To maximize the effectiveness of the method, a Taguchi robust design approach was applied to optimize the reaction in terms of the operating conditions influencing its outcome and the results were monitored by characterization of the Pr2(WO4)3 nanoparticles. Among the four parameters studied we found the dimensions of the produced nanoparticles to be determined by the concentrations of Pr3+ and WO43− solutions and the reaction temperature, while the flow rate of adding the cation solutions to the anion solution was found to leave very negligible effects on the product characteristics. To confirm the effect of the optimizations on the outcomes of the reaction, SEM, TEM, EDX, XRD, FT-IR and UV-Vis structural and morphological characterizations of the products were performed, the results of which were in agreement with those statistically predicted in the optimization procedure. Furthermore, as-synthesized praseodymium tungstate nanoparticles under ultraviolet light exhibited an efficient photocatalyst property in the photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue.