Preparation and characterization of V2O5/ZnO nanocomposite system for photocatalytic application

The removal of dyes from industrial wastewater using visible-light driven catalyst is one of the major challenging issues. Vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) has a considerable attention as a promising visible light driven catalyst for degradation of organic pollutants due to its narrow bandgap. Nevertheless, fast recombination of electron-hole pairs in V2O5 catalyst limits its application in photodegradation. Photocatalytic performance of V2O5 can be improved by coupling with other semiconductors. In this study, we have synthesized V2O5/ZnO nanocomposites via simple thermal decomposition method. The formation of orthorhombic structured V2O5 and hexagonal structured ZnO was confirmed by powder X-ray diffraction analysis. HR-SEM result reveals the nanorod formation of prepared V2O5/ZnO composites. From EDX analysis, it was confirmed that the prepared nanocomposites are composed of vanadium, zinc and oxygen only. DRS spectrum shows the absorption edge of V2O5/ZnO in visible region of spectrum. Furthermore, the prepared catalyst is used for photodegradation of methylene blue (MB) under visible light irradiation. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.