Surfactant-assisted synthesis of MoO3 nanorods and its application in photocatalytic degradation of different dyes in aqueous environment

Abstract

The fabrication of an effective photocatalytic material for environmental applications is an active research area. In this research, MoO3 nanorods using different surfactants were fabricated using a facile hydrothermal method. Structural properties, surface morphology, chemical composition, and optical properties of the fabricated photocatalysts were studied using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), photoluminescence (PL) and UV–visible diffused reflectance spectroscopy. The α-MoO3 hexagonal prism shaped nanorods prepared by hexamethylenetetramine (HMTA) exhibited excellent photocatalytic activity for the decomposition of methylene blue (MB), rhodamine B (RhB) and alizarin (AZ) dyes under the irradiance of visible light as compared to other photocatalysts. Moreover, MoO3-HMTA sample showed higher degradation efficiency for MB (98%), RhB (90%) and AZ (74%) dyes within 120 min of light exposure. In addition to this, MoO3-HMTA photocatalysts demonstrated good stability in aqueous environment after five consecutive cycles. The scavenger’s effect and degradation mechanism of MB, RhB & AZ dyes is also explained with highly efficient photocatalyst material (MoO3-HMTA). The enhanced photocatalytic efficiency of prepared material was found due to rapid transition of charge carriers, reduced recombination of photogenerated electrons and holes because of good morphology.