Hydrothermal topological synthesis and photocatalyst performance of orthorhombic Nb2O5 rectangle nanosheet crystals with dominantly exposed (010) facet

作者：Wen, Puhong^*; Ai, Lili; Liu, Taotao; Hu, Dengwei; Yao, Fangyi

来源：Materials and Design, 2017, 117: 346-352.

DOI：10.1016/j.matdes.2017.01.004

• Hydrothermal topochemical synthesis
• O-Nb2O5 rectangle nanosheets exposed (010) facet
• Crystal structure evolution
• Photoelectric performance

The regular orthorhombic Nb2O5 (O-Nb2O5) rectangle nanosheets dominantly exposed (010) facet are synthesized by a hydrothermal topological reaction with a precursor of K(4)Nb(6)O(17 center dot)4.5H(2)O (KNb). The structure and morphology of the samples obtained at different temperatures and pH values of reacting solution are investigated. The results suggest that there are two topological reactions in this process. One is the acid-exchanging reaction transforming into H(4)Nb(6)O(17 center dot)3H(2)O (HNbO) nanosheets from KNbO rectangle nanosheets, and the other is dehydration reaction transforming into O-Nb2O5 rectangle nanosheets from HNbO nanosheets. And the {010} facets of O-Nb2O5 crystal are transformed from the {010} facets of HNbO crystal in the ingenious topological reaction. The photoelectric performance of the obtained O-Nb2O5 nanosheets is evaluated by decomposing water to H-2 under 370 nm UV light illumination and measuring the accompanying photocurrent. The photocurrent density is 680 nA.cm(-2) generated by splitting water with O-Nb2O5 nanosheets as photocatalyst, and it is 4.3 times of the contrast sample. The result indicates that the (010) facet of O-Nb2O5 is one of the highest photocatalytic active surfaces and shows high photoelectric conversion efficiency. Thus, the O-Nb2O5 nanosheets dominantly exposed (010) facet have potential applications in photocatalyst and photoelectric nanodevices.

• 出版日期2017-3-5
• 单位宝鸡文理学院