Sodium doped-V2O5 nanorods for visible light irradiated photocatalytic performance for the degradation of Rh-dye

The sodium doped vanadium pentaoxide (Na.V2O5) nanorods were synthesized through hydrothermal method. The sodium (Na) enriched V2O5 nanorods with different concentration of Na varied from 1 wt%, 3 wt% and 5 wt%. X-ray diffraction, field emission scanning electron microscopy, UV–Visible spectroscopy and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy were used to investigate the structural, morphological and optical properties of the synthesized pure V2O5 and Na-doped V2O5 (1, 3 and 5 wt%). The microstructural studies confirmed the formation of nanorods structure for Na doped V2O5. The photocatalytic performance of these synthesized photocatalysts were studied to degrade Rhodamine B dye in visible light region. Their efficiency to perform the photodegradation was improved in all Na doped V2O5 samples (1, 3 and 5 wt%) than that of pure V2O5 nanorods. Among all concentration of Na in V2O5 nanorods, the Na.V2O5 (5 wt%) exhibited the maximum degradation of the rhodamine dye having 88.9% degradation with rate constant 0.0619 min−1 of a reaction.