Photocatalytic Performance of Barium-Doped Strontium Tantalate

Abstract

Sr2Ta2O7, a layered perovskite compound, has been reported to possess most excellent photocatalytic properties among the layered perovskite materials. Recently, we have successfully demonstrated that Ba5Ta4O15 that was prepared under Ta rich atmosphere has high photocatalytic performance as well as Sr2Ta2O7. In this study, several amount of Ba was doped into Sr2Ta2O7, and the photocatalyst samples with a mol ratio of Sr: Ba: Ta = (1-x): x: 1 were prepared by the polymerized complex method to investigate the effect of Ba substitution for the Sr site on photocatalytic activity. The maximum photocatalytic performance was obtained for x = 0.2 near the solid solubility limit, which is three times as high as that of undoped Sr2Ta2O7 and is in the highest level in a series of tantalum photocatalysts reported so far. The increase of photocatalytic activity would be caused by crystal distortion due to doping of Ba ion.