Hydrothermal synthesis of InVO4/Graphitic carbon nitride heterojunctions and excellent visible-light-driven photocatalytic performance for rhodamine B

Abstract

In this work, n-type graphite-like C3N4 (denoted as g-C3N4) was fabricated and modified with p-type Indium vanadate (InVO4) to form a novel InVO4/g-C3N4p–n heterojunction photocatalyst for the efficient photocatalytic degradation of rhodamine B (Rh B). The photocatalysts were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), photoluminescence (PL) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). The photocatalytic activities were evaluated in the degradation of Rh B aqueous solution. The results showed that the as-prepared InVO4/g-C3N4 hybrid materials displayed much higher photocatalytic activity than the pure g-C3N4 and InVO4 particles. Among them, the 30wt% InVO4/g-C3N4 sample exhibited the highest photocatalytic activity. The visible-light photocatalytic activity enhancement of InVO4/g-C3N4 heterojunction photocatalyst could be attributed to its strong absorption in the visible region and low recombination rate of the electron–hole pairs. It was further found that the photodegradation of Rh B molecules is mainly attributed to the oxidation action of the generated O2- radicals and partly to the oxidation process of OH radicals.