In-situ stirring assisted hydrothermal synthesis of Bi2S3 nanowires on BiVO4 nanostructures for improving photocatalytic performances

Abstract

A facile synthesis method of heterojunction photocatalysts with high efficiency and stability have been still a significant challenge for the removal of environmental contaminants. In this work, the BiVO4/Bi2S3 heterojunction was successfully fabricated through an in-situ stirring assisted hydrothermal method. High crystalline Bi2S3 nanowires (NWs) with a high aspect ratio were directly grown on the BiVO4 nanoparticles. The ideal interfaces of BiVO4/Bi2S3 lead to reduction of the recombination rate of electron-hole pairs, with the morphology evolving from nanorods agglomerations to disorganized regular nanowires agglomerations by stirring. Compared with unstirring BiVO4/Bi2S3 samples, the photocatalytic degradation of Rhodamine B (RhB) performance of the stirred sample was increased by 1.7 times. The heterojunction BiVO4/Bi2S3-10S was proved to enhance the charge separation and transport of photogenerated charge carriers and improved its photocatalytic activity.