Hydrothermal Synthesis, Characterization and Exploration of Photocatalytic Activities of Polyoxometalate: Ni-CoWO4 Nanoparticles

This study demonstrated the hydrothermal synthesis of bimetallic nickel-cobalt tungstate nanostructures, Ni-CoWO4 (NCW-NPs), and their phase structure, morphology, porosity, and optical properties were examined using X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), Scanning electron microscopy- energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDS), high resolution Transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) and Raman instruments. It was found that as-calcined NCW-NPs have a monoclinic phase with crystal size similar to 50-60 nm and is mesoporous. It possessed smooth, spherical, and cubic shape microstructures with defined fringe distance (similar to 0.342 nm). The photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB) and rose bengal (RB) dye in the presence of NCW-NPs was evaluated, and about 49.85% of MB in 150 min and 92.28% of RB in 90 min degraded under visible light. In addition, based on the scavenger's study, the mechanism for photocatalytic reactions is proposed.