TiO2/BiVO4 heterojunction nanocomposites with hollow submicron spheres with carbon as charge transfer meditator and their enhanced photocatalytic activity in visible light

Abstract

In this paper, we present feasible fabrication method for TiO2/BiVO4 /carbon heterojunction photocatalysts which are uniformly distributed heterojunctions. TiO2/BiVO4/carbon composites with heterojunction structure have been successfully synthesized under Poly(MAA/EGDMA) using as template. TiO2/BiVO4/carbon heterojucntion photocatalyst are synthesized by using charge interaction of ion precursors. X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopies (XPS) indicate that the TiO2/BiVO4/carbon photocatalysts are composed of anatase TiO2 and monoclinic BiVO4. Elemental mapping analysis presented homogeneous distributed heterojunctions in the TiO2/BiVO4/carbon photocatalyst. Photocatalytic activities were examined by studying the degradation of methylene blue (MB), Methyl orange (MO) and Rhodamine B (Rh B) under visible-light irradiation. It is demonstrated that the formation of the TiO2/BiVO4/carbon heterojunction structure plays an important role in the photocatalytic activity. The homogemeous heterojucntions improve separation, transport, and suppress recombination of photogenerated charges. As a result, TiO2/BiVO4/carbon heterojunction photocatalysts improved the lifetime of the photogenerated charges and photocatalytic activity.