Mesoporous-assembled V2O5 nanosheet synthesized via a surfactant-modified sol–gel technique and its photocatalytic H2 production activity under visible light irradiation

A modified sol–gel technique with the aid of a structure-directing surfactant was employed to synthesize highly crystalline mesoporous-assembled V2O5 nanosheet under mild conditions. The synthesized V2O5 nanosheet was systematically characterized by TG-DTA, XRD, N2 adsorption–desorption, high resolution TEM, and UV–visible spectroscopy analyses. The characterization results revealed that the synthesized V2O5 nanosheet exhibited not only high crystallinity but also narrow pore size distribution in the mesoporous range. The photocatalytic H2 production activity of the synthesized mesoporous-assembled V2O5 nanosheet from both self photoexcitation and dye photosensitization systems under visible light irradiation was also found to be higher than that of a commercially available V2O5 powder.