High photocatalytic WO3 nanoparticles synthesized using Sol-gel method at different stirring times

Cancer and water scarcity are two important global problems, which can be solved using the interaction of light with WO3 nanoparticles. The stirring time in the sol-gel method is an important synthesis parameter that plays a decisive role in the formation of nanoparticles and their properties. Therefore, the effects of stirring time are investigated on the structural, morphological, optical properties, hydrodynamic diameter, colloidal stability, and photocatalytic activities of WO3 nanoparticles under diode laser irradiation. Also, the XRD results declare that the stirring times of 3, 7, and 11 h lead to creating a single phase of orthorhombic but, hexagonal phase with the phase percentage of 8% appears in the sample with increasing the stirring time to 15 h. Furthermore, stirring time affects the average crystallite and particle sizes of the synthesized nanoparticles, and an increasing trend in these average sizes is observed with increasing the stirring time. indeed, the results confirm the formation of uniform tungsten oxide dihydrate nanoparticles at different stirring times. The synthesized WO3 sample at a stirring time of 7 h has good colloidal stability (zeta potentials of -30.02 mV). Finally, the photocatalytic activities of WO3 nanoparticles are evaluated using the degradation of methylene blue under laser irradiation in neutral and acidic conditions. The results demonstrate that stirring time significantly affects the ROS production of the synthesized nanoparticles. The stirring times of 7 h/3 hours has the highest photocatalytic efficiency of 91.7%/80.3% in the neutral/ acidic medium in exposing time of 160 min.(GRAPHICS)