Solvothermal fabrication of different morphologies of iron doped vanadium sulfide for photocatalytic applications

This article presents the synthesis of different morphologies of iron doped vanadium sulfide by the reaction of vanadium trichloride and sodium sulfide in bare iron autoclave at 140 °C for 4 hrs using ethanol as a solvent and hydrazine as a reducing agent. S-sulfosalicylic acid was used in 1:1, 1:2 and 1:3 with vanadium trichloride keeping all the other conditions same to study the changes in morphologies of the synthesized products. Products were characterized with PXRD, SEM-EDS, ICP-OES, FTIR, TGA and UV–vis spectroscopy. Mechanism of morphological changes and photo-excitation of solochrome cyanine R under direct sunlight was evaluated in detail with UV–vis spectroscopy.