Facile synthesis of nanostructured trirutile antimonates M(II)Sb2O6 (M = Co, Cu, Ni, Fe) and its visible photocatalytic studies

A visible light active nanocrystalline trirutile antimonates CoSb2O6, CuSb2O6, NiSb2O6 and FeSb2O6 were prepared by solution combustion method and their visible light photocatalytic activity was reported for the first-time. The as prepared products were in nanocrystalline single phasic trirutile structure. These compounds were synthesized with different oxidant to fuel ratios (O/F = 1, O/F = 0.5 and O/F = 2). XRD confirmed the formation of trirutile structured single phase and Raman spectral modes showed characteristic features of trirutile structure with broadening peaks. UV-DRS confirmed the band-gap decreases with different Oxidant/Fuel ratios. Furthermore, all the products showed good activity in p-nitrophenol degradation while CuSb2O6 showed better activity (98%) than the other products after 3 h. Thus, the presented work is highly extensive to those of UV active antimonate photocatalysts reported in the literature and this work unlocks the way to develop visible light active antimonate based semiconductor photocatalysts for degradation of organic pollutants in wastewater