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Abstract
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ZrO2 inverse opal photonic crystal having optical characteristics and chemical properties such as band gap, slow light effect, and photon localization is a suitable combination for making photocatalytic samples[1]. This structure consists of air holes made of opal photonic crystals Polymethyl methacrylate is used as a template[2]. Considering the potential efficiency of inverse opal nanostructures in various fields such as photocatalysts, solar cells, gas sensors, etc, in the study, the photocatalytic activity of pure ZrO2 inverse opal doped with lanthanide ions, Er3+ and Yb3+ composite with TiO2 was investigated for degradation of methylene blue as an organic pollutant and tetracycline under visible and infrared light irradiation. To increase the efficiency of inverse opal ZrO2, doped lanthanide metals were used by the sol-gel method. Also, the photocatalytic activity of inverse opal ZrO2 as a composite with titanium dioxide increases significantly. Adding lanthanide elements causes more absorption of light in longer wavelengths absorption of infrared waves and conversion of these light waves into visible and ultraviolet light, and the amount of electron-hole recombination is also reduced. Also, adding titanium dioxide increases the amount of light trapping. The results show that the photocatalytic activity of the synthesized samples is pure with a removal percentage of 50% and increases when dopping with 2:2% of erbium and ytterbium in the crystal lattice, and ZrO2Upc composite with TiO2Upc with a removal percentage of 94% is considered as our best photocatalyst for degradation of MB.
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