Growth of oriented vanadium pentaoxide nanostructures on transparent conducting substrates and their applications in photocatalysis

• Monoclinic VO2 nanorod array and flower-like nanostructure were directly grown on FTO substrate by hydrothermal reaction.
• The growth mechanism was analyzed by FESEM at different time.
• V2O5 flower-like nanostructure film was obtained after calcining VO2 film.
• V2O5 film exhibited good light activity and potential application in photocatalysis.

A novel, hydrothermal and hard-template-free method was developed for the first time to grow oriented, single-crystalline monoclinic VO2 (B) flower-like nanorod films on transparent conductive fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) substrates. The length and morphology of the nanorods can be tuned by changing the growth parameters, such as growth time and initial precursor concentration. The flower-like V2O5 films were obtained after post-calcination treatment of VO2 (B) films. The photocatalytic activity of V2O5 films was investigated by the degradation of methylene blue (MB) under UV and visible light. The prepared V2O5 film exhibited good photocatalytic performance (74.6% and 63% under UV and visible light for 210 min, respectively) and more practical application in industry.

Flower nanostructured vanadium oxide film was prepared by hydrothermal reaction for photocatalysis application.Figure optionsDownload as PowerPoint slide