Ultrasound assisted one step in-situ preparation and characterization of rGO-WO3 nanocomposite for degradation of organic dyes

Abstract

The present work focuses on preparation of reduced graphene oxide-WO3 (rGO/WO3) nanocomposite using ultrasound assisted method. It is expected that the intense environment created by ultrasound will help reduce particle size of WO3 deposited on the graphene oxide nanosheets. Successful formation of rGO/WO3 nanocomposite was confirmed with the use of different characterization techniques. The use of ultrasound in the preparation of nanocomposites plays very important role in its formation. The rGO/WO3 nanocomposites prepared by varying reaction conditions like type of sonication, sonication time, concentration of acidic medium, and initial quantity of graphene oxide (GO) were further used in methylene blue (MB) dye degradation experiments to study the effect of various preparation conditions. rGO/WO3 nanocomposite photocatalyst prepared using low HCl concentration (3.0 M), bath sonication (75 min sonication time) and 40 mg GO loading in nanocomposite exhibited maximum degradation of MB dye (81.56%). Further, this nanocomposite photocatalyst was used to investigate magnitude of degradation of various dyes which revealed that the degradation rate follows the order as crystal violet>methylene blue>brilliant green.