Starch-assisted synthesis of WO₃ nanoparticles for degradation of crystal violet dye

Abstract

In the present study, WO₃ nanoparticles (NPs) synthesised via starch-assisted co-precipitation approach and crystal violet (CV) dye was selected as a model pollutant to examine the photocatalytic efficiency of synthesised samples. The XRD of samples verified monoclinic phase with a crystallite size of 24 and 32 nm for starch-assisted WO₃ (WS1) and without starch WO₃ (WS0) NPs, respectively. SEM and FESEM analysed the morphology of synthesised samples and the average particle size of 108 nm is obtained for WS1. The bandgap value of WS1 has been calculated to be about 2.69 eV. According to obtained result, about 97% of CV dye degrades in the presence of WS1 under sunlight after 150 min with a rate constant of 0.01532 min⁻¹.

KEYWORDS:

• Tungsten-trioxide (WO₃)
• soluble-starch
• co-precipitation
• optical bandgap
• semiconductor
• photocatalyst

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the DES (Director of Experiment Station) G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, India for providing financial support for the characterisation of the samples.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).