Effect of calcination process on structural and optical properties of tungsten doped ZnO nanostructures

A systematic investigation on the structural, optical and photo catalytic properties of pure and tungsten (W) doped ZnO nanoparticles synthesized by sonochemical method followed by increased calcinations temperature is presented here. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis of these samples showed the formation of phase pure nanoparticles with wurtzite ZnO structure. The Ultra violet (UV-Vis) optical studies showed a blue shift in the absorbance peak spectrum with increasing the doping concentration of Tungsten. The FESEM imaging analysis reveals the spherical like morphology with agglomeration and clearly depicts the calcination temperature plays an important role in morphological formation and variation in agglomeration of the prepared ZnO nanostructures. The Rhodamine B (RhB) decomposition rate of the synthesized pure ZnO and tungsten doped ZnO nanoparticles were studied under the UV region. In the UV region, synthesized pure ZnO and Tungsten doped ZnO decomposed RhB dye. However, the RhB decomposition rate obtained using pure ZnO was much lower than by doped ZnO.