Effects of exposed facets on photocatalytic properties of WO3

•Three morphologies of h-WO3 with different preferred direction were synthesized.•The different preferred directions were obtained by tuning the capping agents and pH.•h-WO3 with exposed (1 0 0) facets have the best visible potocatalytic properties.

Hexagonal WO3 (h-WO3) was prepared by using Na2SO4 and (NH4)2·SO4 as capping agents under different hydrothermal conditions. XRD, SEM and TEM results indicated that three types of morphologies, including h-WO3 rods with exposed (2 0 0) facets, h-WO3 nanosheets with exposed (0 0 2) facets and h-WO3 with corn cob-like structure and no preferred direction, could be obtained by tuning the capping agents and pH. Specifically, h-WO3 nanosheets with exposed (0 0 1) facets have the best visible photocatalytic properties due to its high specific surface area and charge separation nature on the (0 0 2) high energy facets.

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