Photochemical Properties of Iron (III) containing Polyoxomolybdate Nanoclusters

The photocatalytic reaction demonstrates the possibilities of converting light energy into chemical energy. Recently, much attention has been paid to the use of visible light to drive chemical reactions because of the abundance of visible light, its benign environmental impact, and sustainability. Polyoxometalates (POMs), a large group of metal oxide clusters, having electronic and structural diversity possess broad applications in many fields of science, such as catalysis, materials science, and biology [1]. In this work, we investigated photocatalytic decomposition of H2O2 on iron (III) containing polyoxomolybdates as the catalyst. When the reaction was subjected to visible light irradiation, H2O2 decomposed completely in less than 1h. The optical properties of the nanoclusters were evaluated by diffuse reflectance UV-vis spectroscopy. According to the band gap value (2.12 eV), the clusters could be visible light sensitive photocatalysts. The effect of different light wavelengths on the H2O2 decomposition in the presence of this nanoclusters was examined under visible light irradiation using different cut-off filters. The initial rate of the H2O2 decomposition was found to be wavelength dependent [2]. The photoefficiency is in good accordance with the diffuse reflectance absorption spectrum which further suggests that the catalyst is efficient in the visible region