TY - JOUR

T1 - Facile fabrication of visible light induced Bi2O3 nanorod using conventional heat treatment method

AU - Raza, W.

AU - Khan, A.

AU - Alam, U.

AU - Muneer, M.

AU - Bahnemann, D.

N1 - Funding information: Financial support to Research Project from Ministry of Mines, Government of India, New Delhi (F.NO 14/28/2014-Met.iV dated 29.12.2014) and Alexander von Humboldt foundation , Germany under research group linkage programme are gratefully acknowledged. We are thankful to Dr T. Harada and M. Matsumura from research centres for Solar Energy Chemistry, Osaka University, Japan for providing SEM image of synthesized compounds and Department of Physics for conducting XRD-analysis and the Department of Chemistry, Aligarh Muslim University Aligarh for providing necessary facilities.

PY - 2016/3/5

Y1 - 2016/3/5

N2 - In this paper, a new Bi 2O 3 based photocatalyst doped with varying concentration of Nb and Mn metal ion was fabricated by conventional heat treatment method and their photocatalytic activity was investigated. The prepared material was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV-Visible Spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and Scanning Electron Microscopic (SEM) techniques. The XRD analysis of synthesized photocatalyst was found to exhibit characteristic peaks of well crystallized monoclinic α-Bi 2O 3. The XRD pattern of pure and metal doped Bi 2O 3 were found to more or less similar. The crystallite size of doped materials were smaller than pure Bi 2O 3 and size decreases with increasing dopant concentration from 0.5 to 2.0% for Nb & 1.0-3.0% for Mn and remains almost constant at higher dopant concentration. The SEM analysis clearly indicate the formation of nanorod like morphologies. The UV-Vis absorption spectra of synthesized nanorods revealed that the absorption edge shift towards longer wavelength on doping with Nb and Mn metal ions which is beneficial for absorbing more visible light in the solar spectrum. The prepared doped Bi 2O 3 nanorod showed the excellent photocatalytic activity for degradation of selected organic pollutants, such as Methylene Blue (MB) and Rodaamime B (RhB) under visible light source. The higher activity of doped Bi 2O 3 nanorod may be attributed to absorption of more visible light leading to generation of higher photogenerated electron hole pairs and efficient separation of photoinduced charge carrier to inhibit the recombination rate.

AB - In this paper, a new Bi 2O 3 based photocatalyst doped with varying concentration of Nb and Mn metal ion was fabricated by conventional heat treatment method and their photocatalytic activity was investigated. The prepared material was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV-Visible Spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and Scanning Electron Microscopic (SEM) techniques. The XRD analysis of synthesized photocatalyst was found to exhibit characteristic peaks of well crystallized monoclinic α-Bi 2O 3. The XRD pattern of pure and metal doped Bi 2O 3 were found to more or less similar. The crystallite size of doped materials were smaller than pure Bi 2O 3 and size decreases with increasing dopant concentration from 0.5 to 2.0% for Nb & 1.0-3.0% for Mn and remains almost constant at higher dopant concentration. The SEM analysis clearly indicate the formation of nanorod like morphologies. The UV-Vis absorption spectra of synthesized nanorods revealed that the absorption edge shift towards longer wavelength on doping with Nb and Mn metal ions which is beneficial for absorbing more visible light in the solar spectrum. The prepared doped Bi 2O 3 nanorod showed the excellent photocatalytic activity for degradation of selected organic pollutants, such as Methylene Blue (MB) and Rodaamime B (RhB) under visible light source. The higher activity of doped Bi 2O 3 nanorod may be attributed to absorption of more visible light leading to generation of higher photogenerated electron hole pairs and efficient separation of photoinduced charge carrier to inhibit the recombination rate.

KW - Doped Bi O nanorod

KW - Dye degradation

KW - Photocatalysis

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84948398466&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.molstruc.2015.11.014

DO - 10.1016/j.molstruc.2015.11.014

M3 - Article

VL - 1107

SP - 39

EP - 46

JO - Journal of molecular structure

JF - Journal of molecular structure

SN - 0166-1280

ER -