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Facile synthesis of Aluminum-doped Bi2WO6 and enhanced remediation of aqueous Methylene Blue and Rhodamine B
* 1 , 1 , 1 , 2 , 3
1  Department of Physics, Tribhuvan University
2  International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics, National Institute for Materials Science
3  Nanomaterials Research Laboratory, Nepal Academy of Science and Technology
Academic Editor: Jean-François Lamonier

Abstract:

Pristine Bi2WO6 and different concentrations of aluminum-doped Bi2WO6 nanoparticles were synthesized using a simple hydrothermal method for a comparative study of the decolorization of aqueous organic pollutants. The synthesized nanoparticles were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV–visible spectroscopy (UV-vis), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), Raman spectroscopy, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET), Zeta potential, field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), selected area electron diffraction (SAED), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). The XRD pattern revealed the formation of an orthorhombic structure for pure and Al-doped Bi2WO6. Aluminum doping decreased the crystallite size. The formation of 3D flower-like nanostructures that were composed of 2D nanosheets was observed through FE-SEM. The band gap increased because of the doping aluminum, which revealed the blue shift of the band gap. We performed both photocatalytic and adsorption experiments for 20 ppm aqueous Methylene Blue (MB) and Rhodamine B (RhB) for all synthesized catalysts. The aluminum-doped Bi2WO6 catalysts showed enhanced decolorizing efficiency, and 0.15Al-Bi2WO6 exhibited the best performance for adsorption. The results were analyzed using various models such as second-order kinetics, the BMG model, and the intraparticle Weber and Morris diffusion model. We found taht 97.02% and 95.61% of MB and RhB dye solutions decolorized in 20 and 30 min using 0.15Al-Bi2WO6, with second-order rate constants of 0.566 Lmg-1min-1 and 0.225Lmg-1min-1, respectively.

Keywords: Nanomaterials synthesis; Adsorption; Photocatalysis; Dye remediation

 
 
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