Ligand-assisted soft-chemical synthesis of self-assembled different shaped mesoporous Co3O4: efficient visible light photocatalysts.

Mesoporous self-assembled cobalt oxide (Co3O4) of different shapes was synthesized by a facile soft-chemical process using cobalt nitrate, oxalic acid and phosphoric acid in the presence of cationic templates, cetyltrimethylammonium bromide, 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium bromide, and pyridinium bromide at 75 °C/2 h followed by calcination at 300 °C. The effect of cationic templates of the samples on the physico-chemical properties, and the photocatalytic efficiency for the degradation of Chicago Sky Blue 6B was studied. Pyridinium bromide and 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium bromide facilitated formation of particles with different shaped morphology compared to cetyltrimethylammonium bromide. The rod-like particles having higher surface area exhibited higher photocatalytic performance.