WO3/expanded graphite nanocomposite with enhanced visible light driven photocatalytic activity toward degradation of rhodamine B

This report addresses the degradation of organic dyes. Rhodamine B as the most used dyes, is widely employed in industrial purposes, including printing, and dyeing in textile, paper, paints, and leathers. However, this dye will cause serious environmental and biological problems for plants, animals and humans. As the traditional treatment techniques are not capable of completely removing these pollutants, new and highly efficient technologies should be developed for this purpose. For this case, to effectively decompose the rhodamine B in wastewater, a novel all-solid heterostructure photocatalyst was successfully prepared by loading WO3 onto expanded graphite via a two-step hydrothermal method and co-precipitation method. The morphology, chemical composition, and optical adsorption properties of these photocatalyst were characterized in detail. Therefore, the WO3/expanded graphite photocatalyst exhibited remarkably improved photocatalytic activity toward degradation of rhodamine B compared to pure WO3 and expanded graphite under visible light irradiation. The morphology, dimensions and structure of as prepared WO3/expanded graphite nanocomposite was evaluated using field emission-scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and FTIR spectroscopy.