A Mini Review: Rare Earth Metal Doped Zinc Oxide and Photocatalysis

Abstract

In the last two-three decades zinc oxide (ZnO) and ZnO based materials were widely explored for their photocatalytic applications. ZnO is illustrious for its diverse applications. Owing to a broad bandgap ZnO nanomaterial is very likely for photocatalysis but its activity is narrow to UV light irradiation. For improved activity of ZnO under sunlight its modification can be done by addition of another semiconductor. The doping of ZnO enhances its photodegradation performance. The properties of ZnO can be tweaked by controlling aspects such as nature of the preparation method, calcination temperature, precursors, type of dopant, dopant concentration etc. Rare earth (RE) metal proved to be graceful dopant to ZnO for the improved Photocatalytic Degradation (PCD) efficiency. Being trapping sites for photo-electrons and hence promoting separation of charge carriers RE dopants leading to high photocatalytic efficiency of ZnO. Consequently, this article presents a brief but critical review of Rare Earth (RE) metal doped zinc oxide and photocatalysis.