Controlled and environmentally friendly hydrothermal synthesis of nano-V4O9 plate-like for photocatalytic degradation of methyl orange under solar irradiation

Abstract

Nano-V4O9 plate-like morphology has been synthesized by hydrothermal treatment using vanadium oxide (V2O5) as vanadium source and 3-amino-1-propanol (H2N–(CH2)3–OH) as reducing and structure-directing agent, for the first time. The structural and morphological properties of the nano-V4O9 were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), infrared spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). XRD study demonstrated the existence of orthorhombic structure V4O9 with high crystallinity. SEM micrographs revealed that the particles have a plate-like morphology with uniform size distribution whose thickness is on the order of 46 nm. The formation mechanism of V4O9 nanoplates has also been proposed. Optical properties of the as-synthesized samples were investigated by UV–visible diffuse reflection spectroscopy and room temperature photoluminescence. This study shows that when the hydrothermal treatment was carried out for 96 h, the band gap can be estimated at 3.832 eV. The photoactivity of V4O9 nanoplates was evaluated in the degradation of methyl orange under solar irradiation.