Sol-gel prepared vanadium oxide for photocatalytic degradation of Methylene Blue dye

Abstract In the present work vanadium oxide (V2O5) was prepared by simple and direct sol–gel method by using ammonium metavanadate as precursor in the presence of ammonia as complexing agent. For structural and morphological analysis of V2O5 different characterization techniques were used. X-Ray Diffraction and Fourier Transform Spectroscopy were used for structural identification and functional group detection. The morphology of prepared material was studied by Scanning Electron microscopy technique. For band gap measurement (optical study) of V2O5, the UV–Visible Spectrophotometer techniques were used. Finally the Photocatalytic activity of the calcinated product for Methylene Blue (MB) dye was studied. The percentage of degradation and rate constant also calculated. The present work shows the good photocatalytic activity of V2O5 for hazardous MB dye and degradation take place in this case is about 75%. Thus V2O5 is promising material for photocatalytic activity.