Nanoporous anodic Nb2O5 with pore-in-pore structure formation and its application for the photoreduction of Cr(VI)

Alias N 1 , Hussain Z 1 , Tan WK 2 , Kawamura G 3 , Muto H 4 , Matsuda A 3 Show all authors , Lockman Z 5

Affiliations 

  • 1 School of Materials and Mineral Resources Engineering, Engineering Campus, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 14300, Nibong Tebal, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia
  • 2 Institute of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Toyohashi University of Technology, 1-1 Hibarigaoka, Tempaku-cho, Toyohashi, Aichi, 441-8580, Japan. Electronic address: tan@las.tut.ac.jp
  • 3 Department of Electrical and Electronic Information Engineering, Toyohashi University of Technology, 1-1 Hibarigaoka, Tempaku-cho, Toyohashi, Aichi, 441-8580, Japan
  • 4 Institute of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Toyohashi University of Technology, 1-1 Hibarigaoka, Tempaku-cho, Toyohashi, Aichi, 441-8580, Japan; Department of Electrical and Electronic Information Engineering, Toyohashi University of Technology, 1-1 Hibarigaoka, Tempaku-cho, Toyohashi, Aichi, 441-8580, Japan
  • 5 School of Materials and Mineral Resources Engineering, Engineering Campus, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 14300, Nibong Tebal, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia. Electronic address: zainovia@usm.my
Chemosphere, 2021 Nov;283:131231.
PMID: 34144283 DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2021.131231

Abstract

An anodic film with a nanoporous structure was formed by anodizing niobium at 60 V in fluorinated ethylene glycol (fluoride-EG). After 30 min of anodization, the anodic film exhibited a "pore-in-pore" structure; that is, there were smaller pores growing inside larger pores. The as-anodized film was weakly crystalline and became orthorhombic Nb2O5 after heat treatment. The energy band gap of the annealed nanoporous Nb2O5 film was 2.9 eV. A photocatalytic reduction experiment was performed on Cr(VI) under ultraviolet (UV) radiation by immersing the nanoporous Nb2O5 photocatalyst in a Cr(VI) solution at pH 2. The reduction process was observed to be very slow; hence, ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) was added as an organic hole scavenger, which resulted in 100% reduction after 45 min of irradiation. The photocatalytic reduction experiment was also performed under visible light, and findings showed that complete reduction achieved after 120 min of visible light exposure.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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