Low temperature synthesis of NbC/C nano-composites as visible light photoactive catalyst

A facile carbothermal route was adopted to obtain niobium carbide nanoparticles (NPs) embedded in carbon network from Nb2O5 to study photocatalytic behavior. Optimization of synthesis parameters to obtain single phase NbC NPs has been successfully done. The phase identification, morphology and nature of carbon were determined with the help of X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Raman spectroscopy. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) suggested the presence of multiple oxidation states of Nb associated to NbC and NbCxOy centers on the surface of NPs. Due to the presence of NbCxOy on the surface of NPs, absorption under visible region of EM spectrum has been observed by UV-visible spectroscopy. Different organic dyes (RhB, MB and MO) were used to study the effect of holding time on the photocatalytic performance of as-synthesized samples. RhB dye was found to be the most sensitive organic molecule among all the considered dyes and degraded 78% in 120 min.