Abstract
Semiconductor-based photocatalysis is of great potential for tackling the environmental pollution. Herein, a novel hierarchical heterostructure of Bi2O2CO3 micro-flowers in-situ decorated with Ag3VO4 nanoparticles was developed by a facile method. Various characterization techniques have been employed to study the physical and chemical property of the novel catalyst. The novel catalyst was utilized for the photocatalytic removal of industrial dyes (rhodamine B, methyl orange) and tetracycline antibiotic under visible-light irradiation. The results indicated that Ag3VO4/Bi2O2CO3 heterojunctions showed a remarkably enhanced activity, significantly higher than those of bare Ag3VO4, Bi2O2CO3, and the physical mixture of Ag3VO4 and Bi2O2CO3 samples. This could be ascribed to an enhanced visible-light harvesting capacity and effective separation of charge carriers by virtue of the construction of hierarchical Ag3VO4/Bi2O2CO3 heterojunction. Moreover, Ag3VO4/Bi2O2CO3 also possesses an excellent cycling stability. The outstanding performance of Ag3VO4/Bi2O2CO3 in removal of toxic pollutants indicates the potential of Ag3VO4/Bi2O2CO3 in real environmental remediation.Highlights Novel architectures of Ag3VO4 nanoparticles modified Bi2O2CO3 micro-flowers were constructed.Novel Ag3VO4/Bi2O2CO3 exhibited excellent photocatalytic activity and stability.Ag3VO4/Bi2O2CO3 heterojunctions significantly promote the charge separation.
Highlights
Semiconductor photocatalysis has been regarded as one of the most promising nanotechnologies for the treatment of environmental pollution (Bora and Mewada, 2017; Cates, 2017; Wang W. et al, 2017; Zhang and Ma, 2017; Zhu and Wang, 2017)
When a small amount of Ag3VO4 was introduced, no diffraction peaks of Ag3VO4 can be observed in the XRD pattern of AVO/BOC-50
The microstructures of Bi2O2CO3 and Ag3VO4/Bi2O2CO3 heterojunctions were investigated by using SEM
Summary
Semiconductor photocatalysis has been regarded as one of the most promising nanotechnologies for the treatment of environmental pollution (Bora and Mewada, 2017; Cates, 2017; Wang W. et al, 2017; Zhang and Ma, 2017; Zhu and Wang, 2017). The VLD photocatalytic activity of Ag3VO4/Bi2O2CO3 heterojunctions was studied through the degradation of RhB (Figure 5), MO (Figure S1), and TC (Figure 6). The photocatalytic activity of pristine Bi2O2CO3 is much lower than other samples and the RhB degradation efficiency is 31.4%, mainly due to its large bandgap (Yu et al, 2016).
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