Trimetallic oxide nanocomposites of transition metals titanium and vanadium by sol-gel technique: synthesis, characterization and electronic properties

Novel titanium and vanadium based trimetallic oxide nanocomposites (TMONCs) have been synthesized using metal salts of titanium-vanadium along with three others metals viz. tin, aluminium and zinc as precursors by the sol-gel method. Aqueous ammonia and hydrazine hydrate were used as the reducing agents. The preparations of nanocomposites were monitored by observing the visual changes during each step of synthesis. The synthesized TMONCs were characterized using UV-vis, SEM, EDX, TEM and DLS. Band gap of the synthesized TMONCs ranges from 3-4.5 eV determined using tauc plot. FTIR study revealed the molecular stretching and bending peaks of corresponding M-O/M-O-M bonds thus confirming their formation. Molecular composition and particle size were determined using EDX and DLS respectively. Molecular shape, size and surface morphology have been examined by SEM and TEM.