Influence of Ni Doping in SnO2 Nanoparticles with Enhanced Visible Light Photocatalytic Activity for Degradation of Methylene Blue Dye.

In this article, Nickel doped rutile structure tin oxide (SnO2) nanoparticles have been prepared by simple chemical co-precipitation method and prepared samples were characterized by Powder X-ray Diffraction, Fourier transform infrared Spectroscopy, Microraman analysis, Photoluminescene Spectroscopy, UV-Visible Spectroscopy, Energy dispersive analysis and Field emission scanning electron microscope. XRD studies revealed the single phase tetragonal rutile structure with space group of P42/mnm. The average crystallite size of the particles was decreased from 27 to 22 nm with increasing Ni doping concentration. FTIR spectra confirmed the presence of various bands such as O-H, C-H, Sn-O-Sn. Raman modes Eg, A1g and B2g were assigned at 478, 630 and 740 cm-1 which confirmed the single phase of pure and Ni doped SnO2 nanoparticles. The photoluminescence spectra confirmed that the defect related emissions increased with increasing of Ni concentration. The UV absorption spectra showed that the absorption of the particles decreased with increasing Ni concentration and the band gap values decreased from 3.7 to 3.4 eV. EDX spectra confirmed the presence of Sn, Ni, O in pure and doped samples. The photocatalytic activity of the pure and Ni doped SnO2 nanoparticles were analyzed by using methylene blue dye under visible light irradiation. It is concluded Ni (7%) doped SnO2 nanoparticles have higher degradation efficiency compared to pure SnO2 nanoparticles.

Introduction of cadmium chloride additive to improve the performance and stability of perovskite solar cells.

With the increase in the importance of using green energy sources to meet the world's energy demands, attempts have been made to push perovskite solar cell technology toward industrialization all around the world. Improving the properties of perovskite materials as the heart of PSCs is one of the methods to fabricate favorable photovoltaic (PV) solar cells based on perovskites. Here, cadmium chloride (CdCl2) was used as an additive source for the perovskite precursor to improve its PV properties. Results indicated CdCl2 improves the perovskite growth and tailors its crystalline properties, suggesting boosted charge transport processes in the bulk and interfaces of the perovskite layer with electron-hole transport layers. Overall, by incorporation of 1.0% into the MAPbI3 layer, a maximum power conversion efficiency of 15.28% was recorded for perovskite-based solar cells, higher than the 12.17% for the control devices. The developed method not only improved the PV performance of devices but also boosted the stability behavior of solar cells due to the passivated domain boundaries and enhanced hydrophobicity in the CdCl2-based devices.