Synthesis of naked vanadium pentoxide nanoparticles

Vanadium pentoxide is the most important vanadium compound by being the precursor to most vanadium alloys. It also plays an essential role in the production of sulfuric acid as well as in metal-ion batteries and supercapacitors. In this paper, pulsed laser ablation in liquids is used to synthesize naked vanadium pentoxide nanostructures. The resulting particles take up nearly-spherical and flower-like morphologies, composed of alpha-V2O5 and beta-V2O5 crystalline phases. Even naked, the nanostructures are stable in time with a zeta potential of -51 +/- 7 mV. In order to maximize the production of vanadium pentoxide nanostructure, the optimal repetition rate was determined to be @ similar to 6600 Hz when irradiating a pure vanadium target in DI-water. This corresponds to a cavitation bubble lifetime of around similar to 0.15 ms. At that repetition rate, the production reached similar to 10 ppm per minute of irradiation. Finally, from the characterization of the alpha-V2O5 and beta-V2O5 nanostructures, the surface energy of each phase has been carefully determined at 0.308 and 1.483 J cm(-2), respectively. Consequently, the beta-phase was found to display a surface energy very close to platinum. The exciton Bohr radius has been determined at 3.5 +/- 0.7 nm and 2.0 +/- 0.6 nm for alpha-V2O5 and beta-V2O5 phases, respectively.

Automated summary

This study successfully synthesized naked vanadium pentoxide nanostructures using liquid-phase pulsed laser ablation, achieving a production rate of approximately 10 ppm per minute. The characterization of the alpha-V2O5 and beta-V2O5 nanostructures revealed that the beta-phase displays surface energy close to platinum, with exciton Bohr radii of 3.5 +/- 0.7 nm and 2.0 +/- 0.6 nm for alpha-V2O5 and beta-V2O5 phases, respectively.