Construction of multi-shelled Bi2WO6 hollow microspheres with enhanced visible light photo-catalytic performance

Abstract

As a promising structure in enhancing the photo-catalytic performance of the materials, hollow-shell structure still faces the great challenge of constructing an effective architecture for catalytic application. Herein, multi-shelled hollow microspheres of the visible-light photo-catalyst Bi2WO6 with shells up to the triple (BWO-MSH), have been synthesized by using a facile and effective carbonaceous template route. Intriguingly, the photo-catalytic reaction rate constant of BWO-MSH sample is nearly 16 times higher than the Bi2WO6 prepared through solid-state reaction (BWO-SSR). The single-, double-shelled Bi2WO6 microspheres (Broken) could only be synthesized with lower quality (synthesized with many broken species), and their photo-catalytic performance was nearly the same poor as the BWO-SSR sample. Furthermore, multi-shelled hollow microsphere of Bi2O3/Bi2WO6 (BO/BWO-MSH) composite was also synthesized. The present work not only extends the scope of high-performance complex mixed metal oxides with multi-shelled microstructures, but also brings a good reference to engineer other impressive photo-catalyst.