Band Gap Tuning of h-MoO3 Nanocrystals for Efficient Visible Light Photocatalytic Activity Against Methylene Blue Dye

The photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB) dye in aqueous solution was investigated using hexagonal molybdenum oxide (h-MoO3) nanocrystals under visible light irradiation. Chemical precipitation method was utilized to synthesize h-MoO3 and control over the crystal size, shape and distribution were characterized by using HNO3 and HCl as precipitating reagents. The photocatalysts were examined through X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectrum (EDX) for structural, functional, surface morphology and elemental analysis, respectively. The XRD results revealed that the samples were in single phase hexagonal crystal structure. XRD peak broadening analysis was used for crystallite size and strain estimation. The particles were anisotropic in nature and showed one dimensional (1-D) rod structure with hexagonal cross section. Further, the crystal phase stability, optical absorption and emission properties were studied by thermo gravimetric analysis (TGA), diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) and photoluminescence (PL) measurements, respectively. The photocatalytic results demonstrated that the photocatalytic activity of h-MoO3 synthesized using HCl was improved, in comparison to that of HNO3 utilized h-MoO3 sample.