Investigation of optical properties and the photocatalytic activity of synthesized YbYO4 nanoparticles and YbVO4/NiWO4 nanocomposites by polymeric capping agents
Graphical abstract
Introduction
At present, due to water pollution, removing disease-causing microorganisms or pathogens, from fresh water has received much attention. When a pollutant enters a water supply including, lakes, rivers, and oceans, it may either accumulate on the bed or floats on the water. As a result, the quality of water decreases [[1], [2], [3], [4]].
Dyes are considered as the most important and carcinogenic substances. They are released into the water from different sources such as paper, paint, plastic, and textile industries. Rhodamine B and methylene blue (MB) are heterocyclic dyes and have various industrial usages. However, they can negatively affect our ecosystem owing to their toxic and mutagenic nature. Also, they collect in the environment. Up to this point, numerous attempts have been conducted for removal of those dyes from water [[5], [6], [7], [8], [9]].
Nowadays Vanadates are being used in different fields such as photocatalyst [10], photoluminescence devices [11], lithium ion batteries [12], super capacitors [13,14], antibacterial additives [15], gas sensors [16], catalysts [17], ion-exchange materials [18], and water splittings [19]. YbVO4 nanoparticles are well known for making an appropriate medium in photocatalytic systems.
This effort investigates the study of the synthesis of YbVO4/NiWO4 nanocomposites by the co-precipitation process and their photocatalytic properties under visible light. Up to this point, this is a first report on the preparation of YbVO4/NiWO4 nanocomposites. Using polysorbate 80 (Tween 80), polysorbate 20 (Tween 20), and (PEG) with two metal to polymer molar ratios of (1:1) and (1:2), can be considered as the originality of the preparation of YbVO4/NiWO4 nanocomposites. These nanocomposites are determined through Fourier transforms infrared spectroscopy X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, cyclic voltammetry, UV–visible absorption, vibrating sample magnetometer, and X ray energy dispersive spectroscopy.
We investigated photocatalytic properties of YbVO4/NiWO4 nanocomposities performance in various conditions, such as kind of dyes (rhodamine B (Rh B), methylene blue (MB), methyl orange (MO), and phenol red (Ph R)), and particle sizes under visible light (λ > 400 nm). Considering these points that YbVO4/NiWO4 nanocomposites reflect an appropriate respond to our photocatalytic experiments, sunlight is composed of 43% visible light (with wavelength 400 through 700 nm) and approximately 7% ultraviolet, and obtaining consistent results with visible spectrum, one can reasonably expect degradation of dyes mentioned above under the light from the sunlight [1,2].
Section snippets
Synthesis of pure YbVO4
Firstly, 1 mmol of Yb(NO3).6H2O was dissolved in 20 mL of distilled water to form solution A. Next, to form solution B, 1 mmol of NH3VO4 and 3 mmol of capping agent were mixed and dissolved in 30 mL of water. Afterwards, both solutions were mixed dropwise under constant stirring for 15 min at room temperature. Then, Prior to be washed by distilled water for three times in succession and dried in vacuum at 60 °C, the solution was cool down to room temperature and the precipitation was
Results and discussion
Production of YbVO4 nanostructures (Fig. 1a) has been shown in the XRD pattern of YbVO4 nanoparticles. It has been obtained from the molar ratio of polymer to metal (1:1). Then, The XRD patterns of YbVO4/NiWO4 nanocomposites with the molar ratio of polymer to metal (1:2) and different capping agents such as Tween 80, Tween 20, and PEG have been displayed in Fig. 1a–c respectively. As our findings show, all prepared nanocomposites are pure and have two phases including, the phase of YbVO4 and
Conclusions
In summary, a simple co-precipitation process has been carried out for the preparation of the YbVO4/NiWO4 nanocomposites, for the first time. The synthesis of YbVO4/NiWO4 nanocomposites were appraised through different parameters such as type of capping agents (Tween 80, Tween 20 and PEG) with two polymer to metal molar ratios to reach conditions of optimum shape and size. It was found that optimum shape and size can be obtained with the usage of Tween 80, as a capping agent, and the metal to
Conflicts of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgment
Authors are grateful to council of University of Kashan for providing financial support to undertake this work. This work was supported by Council of University of Kashan by Grant Agreement No. 682151/1.
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