Magnetically separable Fe3O4@SiO2@TiO2 nanostructures supported by neodymium(III): fabrication and enhanced photocatalytic activity for degradation of organic pollution

In this contribution, neodymium ion doped Fe 3 O 4 @SiO 2 @TiO 2 magnetic nanoparticles with uniform magnetic cores have been successfully synthesized for the first time. The Fe 3 O 4 @SiO 2 @TiO 2 @Nd nanoparticles were obtained using photodeposition method and the crystal structure, chemical properties and surface morphology of the novel photocatalyst were characterized by XRD, EDS, SEM, TEM, DRS, FT-IR and VSM techniques. The magnetic core covered by neodymium shell within was about 2–5 nm thickness and the core–shell particles size was about 65 nm. Incorporated of neodymium in TiO 2 nanoparticles reduce charge recombination and increases the accessible surface area of titanium dioxide nanoparticles. Nd carrier demonstrated an electron-scavenging ability to mitigate electron–hole pair recombination, which can be improved the photocatalytic activity. In comparison to Fe 3 O 4 @SiO 2 @TiO 2 , Fe 3 O 4 @SiO 2 @TiO 2 @Nd exhibited higher photocatalytic activity for the degradation of rhodamine B (RhB) as a cationic dye and methyl orange (MO) as anionic dye under UV–Visible light irradiation (93.4% of RhB and 79.2% of MO were degraded after 90 min). More importantly, the magnetic catalyst displayed good magnetic response and recoverable after seven cycles. The results demonstrate that synthesized nanocatalyst shows a high stability, recoverability and highly efficiency for purification of wastewater.