Demonstration of Visible Light-Activated Photocatalytic Self-Cleaning by Thin Films of Perovskite Tantalum and Niobium Oxynitrides

Metal oxynitrides adopting the perovskite structure have been shown to be visible light-activated photocatalysts, and therefore, they have potential as self-cleaning materials where surface organic pollutants can be removed by photomineralization. In this work, we establish a route for the deposition of thin films for seven perovskite oxynitrides, CaTaO2N, SrTaO2N, BaTaO2N, LaTaON2, EuTaO2N, SrNbO2N, and LaNbON2, on quartz and alumina substrates using dip-coating of a polymer gel to form an amorphous oxide precursor film, followed by ammonolysis. The initially deposited oxide films were annealed at 800 °C, followed by ammonolysis at temperatures from 850 to 1000 °C. The perovskite oxynitride thin films were characterized using XRD and EDX, with band gaps determined using Tauc plots derived from UV–vis spectroscopic data. A cobalt oxide co-catalyst was deposited onto each film by drop casting, and the photocatalytic activity assessed under visible light using dichloroindophenol dye degradation in the presence of a sacrificial oxidant. The light source used was a solar simulator equipped with a 400 nm cut-off filter. The dye degradation test demonstrated photocatalytic activity in all samples except EuTaO2N and BaTaO2N. The three most active samples were SrNbO2N, CaTaO2N, and SrTaO2N. The cobalt oxide loading was optimized for these three films and found to be 0.3 μg cm–2. Further, catalytic tests were conducted using stearic acid degradation, and this found the film of SrNbO2N with the cobalt oxide co-catalyst to be the most active for complete mineralization of this model pollutant.