A facile synthesis and characterization of α-MoO 3 nanoneedles and nanoplates for visible-light photocatalytic application

Abstract In this work, synthesis of phase pure α-MoO 3 nanoneedles and nanoplates through simple precipitation method has been reported. XRD, FT-IR and Raman analysis clearly confirms the formation of α-MoO 3 via the decomposition of ammonium molybdenum oxide during the heat treatment. The ammonium molybdenum oxide is the product of precipitation process when the addition of ethanol to ammonium heptamolybdate tetrahydrate precursor solution. The nanoneedle and plate-like morphology of α-MoO 3 was identified by FE-SEM analysis. It revealed that the addition of surfactant (sodium dodecyl sulfate) in the precipitation process hinders the 2D growth of α-MoO 3 in the low temperature heat treatment process. The photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB) dye was evaluated using the synthesized α-MoO 3 nanostructures. It was found that needle-like morphology of α-MoO 3 has the potential to decompose the MB dye completely at short irradiation time (∼99% at 50 min) compared to plate-like morphology (77.28% at 50 min).