Hunting of “two birds with one arrow” strategical design of Nb doped WO3 decorated on the BN nanosheet and their enhanced photocatalytic degradation of Rose Bengal dye and Chloramphenicol drug

Abstract

In the present work, “Killing two birds (RB and CAP) with one arrow (Nb/WO3/BN)” plan of action was performed for the photocatalytic degradation of organic dye of Rose Bengal (RB) and organic drug of Chloramphenicol (CAP) was degraded under visible light irradiation with the active catalyst of Nb/WO3/10 % BN composite for first time. The as-prepared Nb/WO3 was functionalized with thin-sheet structure of BN nanocomposite was synthesized via acid precipitation method followed by ultra-sonication method. The effective formation of Nb/WO3/BN were characterized by using XRD, UV-DRS, XPS, SEM-EDS, TEM, Photoluminescence (PL) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The XRD, UV-DRS results clearly revealed that formation of ternary phases in the composites. Formation of ternary composite also confirmed by the XPS analysis. The morphology of WO3, Nb/WO3 and BN were examined by the SEM analysis. Furthermore, the inner morphology of cubic structure of WO3 nanoparticles and Nb/WO3 were decorated on the surface of the BN nanosheet were approved by TEM analysis. Interestingly, photocatalytic degradation of RB revealed by 94.31 % within 60 min as well as CAP degraded 95.13 % within 60 min by Nb/WO3/10 % BN ternary composite under visible light irradiation. Meanwhile, the different prepared photocatalyst, Nb/WO3/10 % BN was found to be the most efficient photocatalyst for degradation of RB and CAP. This results ascribed to the 30 mg of the photocatalyst and 10 mg/L concentration were optimum loading for the degradation of RB and CAP. Scavenger studies were also confirmed in order to understand the mechanism of photodegradation process. It was noted that electrons and holes pair are generated by irradiation of light, followed by (.OH) radical plays a crucial role for the photodegradation mechanism. The active photocatalyst Nb/WO3/10 % BN shows a good stability at room temperature and it can be recycled and reused up to five successful cycles without the major loss in their performances. Therefore, these work revealed that, the best sequence of Nb/WO3/10 % BN nanocomposite is new plan of action for photodegradation of RB and CAP.