Enhanced solar light-mediated photocatalytic degradation of brilliant green dye in aqueous phase using BiPO4 nanospindles and MoS2/BiPO4 nanorods

Abstract

Herein, we report the enhanced solar light-mediated photocatalytic degradation of brilliant green dye using BiPO4 nanospindles and MoS2/BiPO4 nanorods synthesized by facile hydrothermal process. The synthesized nanomaterials were examined by various techniques such as X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) attached with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller, and pore size distribution analysis. The detailed characterizations revealed that after the introduction of MoS2, the crystalline phase transformation from hexagonal to monoclinic was observed for BiPO4. The TEM images clearly confirmed that BiPO4 possessed nanospindles and MoS2/BiPO4 exhibited nanorod-shaped morphologies. The photocatalytic activity of synthesized MoS2/BiPO4 nanorod heterojunction was explored for the degradation of brilliant green (BG) dye under solar light irradiation. Interestingly, approximate 80% degradation of BG was observed under solar light in 70 min using MoS2/BiPO4 nanorods as photocatalyst. As an efficient photocatalyst, the synthesized MoS2/BiPO4 nanorod heterojunction exhibited enhanced photocatalytic efficiency as compared to pure BiPO4 nanospindles, commercially available TiO2PC-50 and TiO2 PC-500 under solar light. The high photocatalytic activity of MoS2/BiPO4 nanorod heterojunction could be related to the amended visible light-harvesting tendency, effective charge separation, and facile transportation of photogenerated e−/h+ pairs at the heterojunction interface.