Microemulsion synthesis, optical and photocatalytic properties of vanadium-doped nano ZnO

In the present work, vanadium-doped ZnO nanoparticles with different V concentrations were prepared via microemulsion method and employed as an effective photocatalyst for the degradation of methylene blue. The prepared samples were characterized by different techniques such as thermogravimetric and differential thermal analysis (TG-DTA), Fourier transform infraredspectroscopy (FTIR), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), elemental mapping (MAP), and ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (Uv-Vis). The XRD patterns of vanadium-doped samples were assigned to wurtzite structure of ZnO and vanadium ions were incorporated into the lattice of zinc oxide. SEM images showed that the synthesized pure zinc oxide has irregular morphology and with adding vanadium dopant, rod and cube-like morphology appeared. The band gap energy of pure ZnO decreased from 3.3 to 3.21 eV on adding 1% vanadium. The results showed that the zinc oxide doped with 1% vanadium exhibited better photocatalytic activity compared to other samples. The possible mechanism for improving of photodegradation efficiency of doped samples was also discussed.