Executive Summary : | The increasing environmental contamination due to modern civilization's needs raises questions about sustainability. Water contamination is primarily from the residues of pharmaceutical, paper, and dye industries, which are essential for daily life. To reduce these wastes, eco-friendly processes like photocatalysis can be used, as organic dyes are highly carcinogenic and resistant to chemical or thermal degradation. TiO2, a semiconductor photocatalyst, has been extensively researched due to its response to UV light. In this work, Sn (tin) is proposed as a cost-effective material for photocatalysis due to its superior electron transfer characteristic and lower band gap compared to TiO2. Sunlight-based photovoltaic materials can be useful for solar cell development, as they can be coated over silicon as a light absorber, providing longer lifetime electron hole pair separation. The basic requirement for a material to be a good photocatalyst or photovoltaic is the ability to capture light via electron hole pair separation. The proposed project aims to synthesize Sn-based materials such as MSnC and nanocomposites of the form SnO2/CeO2/Cellulose, which will be used for photocatalyst and photovoltaic applications. Density functional theory or Molecular Dynamics based simulations can be used to investigate the geometry and optical properties of different molecular models, providing a molecular level understanding of various structures. In conclusion, the main objective of this project is to synthesize Sn-based materials like MSnC and nanocomposites of the form SnO2/CeO2/Cellulose, which will be used for photocatalyst and photovoltaic applications. |