Abstract

Rare earth oxides Er2TiO5 photocatalysts supported on superparamagnetic Fe3O4@SiO2 core-shell nanostructures were prepared through a sol-gel method. The achieved magnetic nanostructures were characterized by a number of procedures such as XRD, FE-SEM, TEM, UV-Vis DRS, VSM and PL spectroscopy and then the activity of the magnetic nanostructures as a photocatalysts for the UV-Vis induced degradation of methyl orange was evaluated. The activity of Fe3O4@SiO2@Er2TiO5 were tested as photodegradation catalysts for removing methyl orange. Moreover, the effect of incorporating different amounts of erbium oxides in the photocatalysts was studied and it was found that the optimal amount of erbium oxide in terms of reaching the highest photocatalytic activity was 25 wt.