The optimization of surface morphology of Au nanoparticles on WO3 nanoflakes for plasmonic photoanode

Photocatalytic Performance Study of Organophosphorus-Doped Tungsten Trioxide and Composite Materials

The present study successfully produced a highly effective and stable organ phosphorus-doped tungsten trioxide (P-WO3) photocatalyst by a combination of hydrothermal and postcalcination methods. The crystallites, morphologies, and optical properties of the produced WO3 and P-WO3 crystals were investigated. The results indicated that P was consistently doped into the WO3 lattice in a pentavalent-oxidation state (P5+). Additionally, charge carrier traps capable of accepting photoelectrons were created. Additionally, the optical band gap was reduced from 2.4 to 2.33 eV. The degradation of methyl blue by photocatalysts was utilized to evaluate the photocatalytic performance of the synthesized P-WO3 samples at varied P concentrations (MB). The sample containing 6% -P-WO3 exhibited the best photocatalytic performance, degrading 96 percent of MB in 120 minutes, which was more than four times faster than the pure WO3 sample. The practicality of the synthesized P-WO3 was determined using samples from two residential wastewater treatment plants. When treating real wastewater with low organic matter concentrations, the P-WO3 demonstrated strong photodegradation performance. The creation of hydroxyl radicals (OH) and photography-created holes (h+) could be the key protagonists of photocatalytic activity in the P-WO3.

Photoactive Tungsten-Oxide Nanomaterials for Water-Splitting

This review focuses on tungsten oxide (WO3) and its nanocomposites as photoactive nanomaterials for photoelectrochemical cell (PEC) applications since it possesses exceptional properties such as photostability, high electron mobility (~12 cm2 V-1 s-1) and a long hole-diffusion length (~150 nm). Although WO3 has demonstrated oxygen-evolution capability in PEC, further increase of its PEC efficiency is limited by high recombination rate of photogenerated electron/hole carriers and slow charge transfer at the liquid-solid interface. To further increase the PEC efficiency of the WO3 photocatalyst, designing WO3 nanocomposites via surface-interface engineering and doping would be a great strategy to enhance the PEC performance via improving charge separation. This review starts with the basic principle of water-splitting and physical chemistry properties of WO3, that extends to various strategies to produce binary/ternary nanocomposites for PEC, particulate photocatalysts, Z-schemes and tandem-cell applications. The effect of PEC crystalline structure and nanomorphologies on efficiency are included. For both binary and ternary WO3 nanocomposite systems, the PEC performance under different conditions-including synthesis approaches, various electrolytes, morphologies and applied bias-are summarized. At the end of the review, a conclusion and outlook section concluded the WO3 photocatalyst-based system with an overview of WO3 and their nanocomposites for photocatalytic applications and provided the readers with potential research directions.