Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect Materials Today: Proceedings 5 (2018) 9760–9770 www.materialstoday.com/proceedings * Corresponding author. Tel.: +0-943-251-2461; fax: +0-762-926-9703 . E-mail address: tanmayghorai66@gmail.com 2214-7853 © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and/or Peer-review under responsibility of International Conference on Functional Nano-Materials, 2016. IC-FNM 2016 First Time Synthesis, Characterization And Synergistic Photocatalytic Effect Of GO/Bi 2 O 3 /Nb 2 O 5 Nanocomposites Tanmay K Ghorai a,b* , Suranjan Sikdar b , Subhapriya Das b , Sayantan Pathak b , Sutanuka Pattanayak c , Niladri Biswas c a Indira Gandhi National Tribal University, Department of Chemistry, Amarkantak, M. P. - 484887, India b University of Gour Banga, Department of Chemistry, P.O.-Mokdampur, Malda, West Bengal - 732103, India c West Bengal State University, Department of Chemistry, Berunanpukuria, Barasat, Kolkata -700126, India Abstract Nanocomposites of metal oxide show unique and enhanced properties in optical, magnetic, catalytic and electrical fields. Particularly, Nanocomposites of Graphene oxide (GO)) /Bi 2 O 3 /Nb 2 O 5 shows very good photocatalytic activity for reduction of 4- nitrophenol (4-NP) and 4-nitroaniline (4-NA) in presence of sunlight. Novel nanocomposites of GO/Bi 2 O 3 /Nb 2 O 5, GO/Bi 2 O 3 and GO/Nb 2 O 5 are synthesized by either adopting ball-milling or solid state method. The rapid photo reduction of 4-NP to 4- aminophenol (4-AmP) and 4-NA to 4-phenylenediamine (4-PDA) by the use of sodium borohydride (NaBH 4 ) in aqueous solution is selected as a model reaction to investigate the photocatalytic activity of GO/Bi 2 O 3 /Nb 2 O 5 nanocomposite. It is found that GO/Bi 2 O 3 /Nb 2 O 5 nanocomposite has better reduction efficiency (96%) on 4-NP and 4-NA in presence of sunlight rather than in absence of sunlight compared the other GO or GO/Bi 2 O 3 or GO/Nb 2 O 5 nanocomposites. The crystallite sizes and grain sizes of GO/Bi 2 O 3 /Nb 2 O 5 are 64±1 and 70±2 nm with specific cubic shape. The FT-IR clearly reveals that GO, Bi and Nb are well incorporated in the GO/Bi 2 O 3 /Nb 2 O 5 composition. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and/or Peer-review under responsibility of International Conference on Functional Nano-Materials, 2016. Keywords: GO/Bi 2 O 3 /Nb 2 O 5 ; Nanocomposite; Catalytic reduction; 4-NP; 4NA 1. Introduction In the last 15 years, research on GO has become an emerging area for the scientist due to its various interesting properties. Among various carbon nanostructures, graphene has a single atom thick sheet arranged by sp 2 -bonded carbon atoms in a hexagonal lattice that shows unique properties for fundamental research [1-5]