Abstract

Direct precipitation of insoluble praseodymium carbonate salt by reaction of the corresponding cation and anion was utilized in this study. This facile, routine, and effective route was optimized statistically through an orthogonal array design for fabrication of nanoparticles, using a Taguchi method to quantitatively evaluate the effects of the major operation conditions on the particle diameter via analysis of variance. The results indicated that high-purity particles with very small dimension (30 nm) could be produced simply by regulating the cation and anion concentrations and flow rate of introducing the cation into the anion solution. The product was thermally decomposed to yield praseodymium oxide nanoparticles by single-stage reaction. Both products were characterized using various conventional techniques including x-ray diffraction analysis, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, and ultraviolet-visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy to monitor the effects of the optimization on their physicochemical properties. Furthermore, the photocatalytic behavior of the nanoparticles was evaluated for treatment of water polluted with methyl orange, revealing high efficiency for degradation of the organic pollutant.