Dr. Valdes-Morales, Hector

The study investigates the influence of praseodymium (Pr) doping on bismuth ferrite (BiFeO3/BFO) nanofibers and their structural, morphological, magnetic, optical, and photocatalytic properties. A series of bismuth ferrite nanofibers with varying concentration of Pr (Bi1-xPrxFeO3, x = 0.00, 0.05, 0.10, and 0.15 mol%) were successfully synthesized using an electrospinning technique. XRD patterns revealed that structural transformation occurred from rhombohedral to orthorhombic upon effective doping of Pr3+ into BFO nanofibers. The X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis confirmed that Bi, Fe, and O maintained their native oxidation states of +3 and -2, respectively in the bare and doped systems. Furthermore, the optical band gap value was significantly reduced from 2.35 to 2.22 eV as well as the recombination rates of charge carriers in the doped systems, especially in BP0.15O system. The photocatalytic performance of the prepared samples was studied by measuring the decomposition of rhodamine B (RhB) under sunlight irradiation. Outcomes showed that the doped-BFO nanofibers exhibited enhanced photocatalytic performance compared to pure BFO, with the BP0.15O system showing the 98 % degradation in 60 min. This enhancement could be attributed to the presence of Pr-energy levels, which facilitating enhanced separation, and charge transfer to the surface for the effective redox reactions.

Considering the significance of atomic-level modulations into nanoscale architectures have become unique, attractive ideas in the field of sensors and decontamination of organic pollutants from the noxious environment. In this work, a novel bifunctional copper ion-modulated nickel telluride nanoflakes are achieved by a hydrothermal method that is applied as a bifunctional catalyst for sensing the level of L-dopa and removing the organic dye pollutant from the environment. The facile processable Cu-NiTe2 nanoflakes are reported for the first time to enable the semiconductor fabrication as a bifunctional catalyst through a low-cost approach. The cation modulation of copper atoms effectively alters the NiTe2 crystal lattice and yields superior physicochemical nature of bifunctional Cu doped NiTe2 crystal structure. The Cu doped NiTe2 effectively shows the efficient separation of electron-hole pairs and enhanced light-harvesting performance, thus exhibits better photocatalytic activity for the crystal violet dye degradation in visible light radiation within 150 min, and nearly 98% degradation occurs for 5%Cu/NiTe2. The enhanced electrocatalytic sensing of L-dopa is attained for 5% Cu/NiTe2 and the concentration range from 0.9 × 10− 6 to 9.9 × 10− 6 M and the value of the limit of detection is 0.308 µMµA− 1. The 5% Cu/NiTe2 catalyst showed good electrochemical sensing ability towards L-dopa.