A General Synthetic Route to High-Quality Perovskite Oxide Nanoparticles and Their Enhanced Solar Photocatalytic Activity.

The main limitations of current methods for synthesizing perovskite oxide (ABO 3 ) nanoparticles (NPs), e.g., the high reagent costs and sophisticated equipment, the long time and high-temperature processing, or multiple post-processing and thermal treatment steps, hamper their full study and potential application. Here, we use a facile low temperature (50 °C) chemical bath synthesis and only one annealing step to successfully produce high phase purity and crystalline quality nano-shaped rare-earth-based REMO 3 NPs (RE=La, Nd, Sm, Gd; M=Fe, Mn, Al). We also show the versatility of this approach by fabricating La 0.7 Sr 0.3 MnO 3 solid solution and non-RE-based BiFeO 3 perovskite. To assess the potential of the as-prepared REFeO 3 and REMnO 3 NPs, they are used for photocatalytic degradation of the norfloxacin antibiotic and show high efficiency. We believe this easy, robust, versatile, and general route for synthesizing ABO 3 -based NPs can be further explored in the vast perovskite family and beyond.