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 (V ₂O₅) 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 V ₂O₅ catalyst limits its application in photodegradation. Photocatalytic performance of V₂O₅ can be improved by coupling with other semiconductors. In this study, we have synthesized V ₂O₅/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 V₂O ₅/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.