Photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue dye using ZnWO4 catalyst prepared by a simple co-precipitation technique

In the present work, zinc tungstate (ZnWO4) nanoparticles were synthesized by a simple co-precipitation technique without the addition of any templates and complexing agent. The X-ray diffraction study confirmed the formation of monoclinic structure ZnWO4. The annealing temperatures play a significant role on the crystallization of the samples and the crystallite size of ZnWO4 nanoparticles are varied between 30 and 65 nm. The well dispersed spherical solid shells along with nanoplatelet like morphology was obtained from the surface morphological study. The concomitant decrease in optical energy band gap value of ZnWO4 is due to the effect of crystallite size enhancement. It was observed that the crystallinity is one of the primary factors that affect the luminescence property of ZnWO4 nanoparticles. The purity and stoichiometric nature of synthesized product was confirmed by compositional analysis. The highest degradation efficiency of 87% was observed for 300 degrees C annealed ZnWO4 nanoparticles in the photocatalytic study by the degradation of methylene blue dye under ultraviolet light irradiation. The photocatalytic study confirmed the decomposition of methylene blue after 1 h irradiation.

Automated summary

In this study, zinc tungstate (ZnWO4) nanoparticles were successfully synthesized using a co-precipitation technique without the addition of templates or complexing agents. It was found that annealing temperatures significantly affect the crystallization and crystallite size of the nanoparticles, with well dispersed spherical solid shells and nanoplatelet morphology observed. The decrease in optical energy band gap value of ZnWO4 was attributed to the increase in crystallite size, which in turn affected its luminescence properties.