Solar photoelectrocatalytic activities of rhodamine-B using sprayed WO3 photoelectrode

The WO3 thin films were deposited with different solution concentrations using chemical spray pyrolysis technique. The prepared WO3 thin films were characterized to study the physicochemical properties. All the films have monoclinic crystal structure and film deposited with 40 mM solution concentration showed the excellent photoelectrochemical performance (photocurrent density = 629 μA/cm2 at 1.5 V/SCE). Transmittance of the films decreased with increase in solution concentration and little variation in optical band gap was observed. WO3 thin films (10 × 10 cm2) deposited with 40 mM solution concentration were studied for the photocatalytic and photoelectrocatalytic degradation of rhodamine-B under solar radiation. The photoelectrocatalytic degradation methods showed the 98% degradation efficiency of WO3 photoelectrode in 160 min. The calculated values of COD and TOC decrease from 76 to 14 (mg/L) and 54 to 10 (mg/L), respectively.