Fabrication and photocatalytic properties of NaNbO3 nanorods

High crystalline and well-grown 1D orthorhombic phase NaNbO3 nanostructure was successfully prepared by traditional hydrothermal method with Nb2O5, NaOH as the source of niobium and sodium, and NaOH as the mineralizer,respectively. TG-DSC, XRD and SEM were employed to investigate the composition, crystalline structure and morphology of products at different stages. The Na2Nb2O6·1.4H2 O precursors were calcined at different temperatures. And they can be easily converted into 1D orthorhombic phase NaNbO3 nanorods when the temperature is above 400 ℃. As the temperature is increased gradually, the products keep good crystallinity, but start to distort in morphology even broke with defects. In addition, the photocatalytic activity was also evaluated by H2 production rate for the products after different post-treatment conditions. It was found that the photocatalytic activity of the products increase at the beginning and decrease at the end. When the post-heat treatment condition is 400 ℃ for 2 h, the average hydrogen production rate over NaNbO3 nanorods is 104.5 μmol·h-1.