Surfactant‐assisted hydrothermal synthesis of NaTaO ₃ nanotubes with enhanced photodegradation activity

Abstract

The morphology of photocatalysts plays an important role in their photocatalytic activity. Here, a novel sodium tantalum trioxide (NaTaO 3) nanotube photocatalyst was hydrothermally synthesised with the assistant of Na dodecyl sulphate (SDS) surfactant. The as-synthesised NaTaO 3 nanotubes presented an enhanced light absorption, compared with NaTaO 3 nanocubes prepared without the addition of SDS. By using rhodamine B (RhB) as organic pollutants model, the NaTaO 3 nanotubes exhibited a 96.2% of photodegradation ratio after 80 min ultraviolet light irradiation, which was much higher than NaTaO 3 nanocubes and commercial P25. The cycle degradation results revealed that NaTaO 3 nanotubes had an excellent photochemical stability. The active species trapping experiment suggested that the dominating active species were hydroxyl radicals and superoxide radicals, rather than holes.

Boosting the photocatalytic properties of NaTaO3 by coupling with AgBr

“…According to the elemental mapping, the Na, Ta and O atoms are homogeneously distributed both in the nanosheets and in the square particles. These square particles are not a surprise, because in several works reporting the synthesis of NaTaO 3 by hydrothermal method, particles with cuboid form was obtained [26][27][28][29][30]. In the case of Br/ NTO(50%), the particles are very similar to the nano-sheets observed for NaTaO 3 , with the same interconnections and size.…”

“…In Fig. 5D, a strong peak is observed at a binding energy of 1069.3 ± 0.1 eV, corresponding to the Na 1 s in NaTaO 3 [28]. The deconvolution of Ta 4f generates two peaks at 26.5 ± 0.1 and 28.3 ± 0.1 eV (Fig.…”

Small amount of TiO 2 modified SnO 2 with enhanced photocatalytic performance toward the removal of rhodamine B

“…Therefore, it is necessary to effectively degrade these dyes. Rhodamine B (RhB) was chosen as a typical model dye for photocatalytic degradation experiments, and numerous scientists have been trying to use different semiconductor‐based photocatalysts to degrade RhB, for example, titania (TiO 2 ), tin dioxide (SnO 2 ), HgO, ZnO, and Au–ZnO etc [7–13]. Among all the photocatalysts, SnO 2 photocatalyst has attracted considerable attention due to its low cost, nontoxicity, outstanding stability, and appropriate thermodynamical positions of the valence band (VB) and conduction band (CB) edges for redox reactions [14–16].…”