A facile microwave-hydrothermal method to fabricate B doped ZnWO 4 nanorods with high crystalline and highly efficient photocatalytic activity

Abstract A series length of 50∼200 nm B doped ZnWO4 nanorods with high crystallinity were fabricated via a fast microwave-hydrothermal method. The effects of B doping on the physical properties of ZnWO4 nanorods were intensively characterized by N2 physical adsorption, XRD, TEM, FT-IR, XPS, ultraviolet-visible diffuse reflection spectrum (UV–vis DRS), photolunminescence spectrum (PL), transient photocurrent response (TPR). The results indicated that the doped B could replace the lattice tungsten ion in ZnWO4 crystals, which caused the lattice spacing contraction, particle size decrease, specific surface area increase. More importantly, the separation of the photogenerated electrons and holes in ZnWO4 was significantly enhanced by B doping. With doped optimum B concentration (2.42 wt%), B/ZnWO4 displayed super photocatalytic performance in dyes decomposition. The degradation rate constant (0.065 h−1) of Rhodamine B over B (2.42 wt%)/ZnWO4 is 4 times of that over ZnWO4 (0.016 h−1).