Samarium carbonate and samarium oxide; synthesis, characterization and evaluation of the photo-catalytic behavior

Nano-sized Sm³⁺ carbonate particles were prepared through a chemical precipitation reaction in aqueous media. The reaction involved admixing streams of Sm³⁺ ion solutions with CO₃ ²⁻ solutions. The synthesis route was optimized through the Taguchi robust statistical design and effective parameters like the concentration of the ion solutions, flow rate of Sm³⁺ feed, and reactor temperature on the size of synthesized samarium carbonate particles were evaluated based on an orthogonal array (OA₉), which revealed that under optimized synthesis conditions samarium carbonate particles as small as 35 nm could be produced. By treating the product in a further thermal decomposition step, 56 nm Sm₂O₃ nanoparticles were also produced. The chemical composition and structure of the nano-sized samarium carbonate and oxide particles were studied through X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, thermal analysis and FT-IR spectroscopy and the synthsized nano-particles were evaluated in terms of their photo-catalytic effects in the UV-induced degradation of methyl orange (MO).