Facile synthesis of YbVO4, and YVO4 nanostructures through MOF route for photocatalytic applications

Recently, one-dimensional nanomaterials gained significant attention in environmental remediation for the degradation and removal of various toxic pollutants in water bodies. Herein in this report, we prepared good visible-light response ytterbium and yttrium vanadates (YbVO4, and YVO4) photocatalyst with unique morphologies has been synthesized using simple MOF precursor followed by calcination route. The YbVO4 exhibited bitter-gourd like structure and YVO4 presented nano-rice structure as an added advantage for photocatalytic application. The assynthesized samples were systematically characterized by XRD studies and transmission electron microscope (TEM) analysis and UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectra (DRS) studies, respectively. These one dimensional YbVO4 and YVO4 exhibited different absorption co-efficient from the UV to visible range with bandgap energies of 2.17 eV, and. 3.15 eV, respectively. The photocatalytic activities of YbVO4 and YVO4 have been investigated towards the photodegradation of aqueous methyl orange (MO) under the visible-light irradiation. Due to higher visible light absorption capacity with a narrow bandgap value of 2.17 eV, the YbVO4 exhibited higher photocatalytic degradation ability towards the MO degradation. As a result, the YbVO4 and YVO4 showed the removal rate of about 81% and 65% removal towards the MO removal with 360 min irradiation time.