Facile Construction Engineering of Pr 6 O 11 @C with Efficient Photocatalytic Activity.

In this study, facile construction engineering of Pr 6 O 11 @C with efficient photocatalytic activity was established. Taking advantage of the flocculation of Pr 3+ in the base medium, acid red 14 (AR14) was flocculated together with Pr(OH) 3 precipitate, in which Pr(OH) 3 and AR14 mixed highly uniformly. Calcinated at high temperature in N2, a novel Pr 6 O 11 @C was successfully synthesized. The resulting materials were characterized by XRD, SEM, FT-IR, Raman, and XPS techniques. The results show that the cubic Pr 6 O 11 @C with Fm3m space group, similar to that of Pr 6 O 11 , was obtained. From the results of the photodegradation of AR14, it is found that the photocatalytic efficiency of Pr 6 O 11 @C is higher than that of pure Pr 6 O 11 due to the formation of abundant carbon bonds and oxygen vacancies. Compared with pure Pr 6 O 11 and other carbon-based composites, the acid resistance of Pr 6 O 11 @C is greatly improved due to the highly uniform dispersion of Pr 6 O 11 and C, which lays a solid foundation for the practical application of Pr 6 O 11 @C. Moreover, the role of NH3·H 2 O and NaOH used as precipitants for the photocatalytic efficiency of Pr 6 O 11 was investigated in detail.