Novel sol–gel method for synthesis of PbTiO₃ and its light harvesting applications

A novel two-step sol–gel method was used in order to synthesize PbTiO₃ nanoparticles with aid of Pb(CH₃COO)₂·2H₂O, and Ti(OC₄H₉)₄ (TNBT) as the starting reagents in the presence of ethanol as the solvent. To the best of authors knowledge, it is first time that benzene-1,3,5-tricarboxylic acid [C₆H₃(COOH)₃] (trimesic acid) use as a chelate agent in produce lead titanate nanoparticles. Besides, to examine the effect of some reaction parameters such as surfactants, reaction temperature, and molar ratio of TNBT to trimesic acid on the morphology and chemical structure of final products several tests were performed. The as-synthesized PbTiO₃ nanoparticle was utilized as photo-anode material for the fabrication of FTO/PbTiO₃/CdS/Pt–FTO and photocatalyst for decolonization of rhodamine-B (RhB) and methylene blue (MB) to investigation its light harvesting applications. Furthermore, according to the XRD results, only in the presence of trimesic acid as the chelate agent pure PbTiO₃ nanoparticle was synthesized. The photocatalyst results reveal that the maximum decolorization of 88 and 82 % for RhB and MB occurred with PbTiO₃ nanoparticles catalyst in 40 min of stirring under ultraviolet light irradiation, respectively.