Formation mechanism of porous rose-like WO3 and its photoresponse and stability study

Abstract

WO₃ materials are widely used in photocatalysis and electrocatalysis. In this work, sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate (SDBS) was used to control the growth of H₂WO₄ during a chemical bath deposition fabrication process. The as-prepared H₂WO₄ material showed a rose-like morphology and after annealing the obtained WO₃ sample was porous with oxygen defects. XRD, SEM, TEM, XPS and some other methods were used to characterize the samples. A possible growth mechanism was given depending on the characterization results. The addition of SDBS resulted in simultaneous growth of numerous H₂WO₄ nuclei, which caused a uniform distribution. Compared with normal WO₃, the as-fabricated porous rose-like WO₃ showed higher stability to photocorrosion and a narrower band gap_.