Sonochemical Synthesis of Zinc Oxide-Vanadium Oxide Nanoflakes for Photocatalytic Degradation of Rh-B Dye

Zinc oxide nanoparticles exhibit low efficiency for catalytic applications under visible light due to their tendency to quickly recombine with photo-generated carriers, which reduces their effectiveness in photocatalytic degradation of dyes. In order to improve the efficacy of the ZnO-based photocatalyst, Zinc Oxide-Vanadium oxide nanoflakesaresynthesized by subjecting the solution of precursors to ultrasonic waves at 15KHz frequency and 375W power for a duration of 2 hours using a probe sonicator. The Zinc Oxide-Vanadium oxide nanoflakes are further analysed using various instrumental techniques including as TEM, FESEM, EDAX, XRD, UV-Vis, and FTIR to determine their particle size, crystal structure, shape, and composition. The findings indicate that the particle size of Zinc Oxide-Vanadium oxide nanocomposite was in the range of 30-56nm in the shape of flakes.As vanadium oxide has low bandgap so its presence in this nanocomposite has led to reduction in the band gap from 3.2 eV to 3.1 eVincreasing solar light absorbing capacity. The findings suggested that the optical response of ZnO was significantly improved and shifted towards visible region by incorporating Vanadium oxide as a co-catalyst. The photocatalytic properties of Zinc Oxide-Vanadium oxide nanocomposites were assessed under visible light and at three different pH of 4, 7 and 9 by using Rhodamine-B dye (Rh-B) as a model pollutant. This composite material has the potential to demonstrate outstanding photocatalytic efficacy in eliminating Rh-B dye from water sources of about 80% which was best seen at pH-9 and temperature 42℃ under visible light irradiation.This study adds to the increasing interest in visible-light photocatalysts based on heterostructures that have the potential to cure wastewater in the real world.