Synthesis Route Impact on BiVO4 Nanoparticles and their Visible Light Photocatalytic Activity Under Green LED Irradiation

The present study demonstrates the BiVO4 nanoparticles synthesized by co-precipitation (CPM), hydrothermal (HTM) and solution combustion method (SCM) and their visible light photocatalytic activity under irradiation of green light emitting diodes. The synthesized catalysts were characterized by Powder X-ray Diffraction, UV-vis Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, BET Surface area analysis, Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy and Scanning electron microscopy. Result demonstrated that the photocatalytic activity of BiVO4 catalyst synthesized by solution combustion method has 4.7, 1.9 and 6.7 times higher photocatalytic activity under irradiation of green light emitting diodes as compared to ultraviolet, blue and red light emitting diodes respectively. It has also been found that the photocatalytic activity of the synthesized BiVO4 by SCM is 6.5 times more as compared to commercial TiO2 under green light emitting diodes irradiation. Furthermore, the room temperature fluorescence and quenching analysis was carried out for the determination of hydroxyl radical generation and understanding photocatalytic activity of the catalyst under green light emitting diodes irradiation. Additionally, the effect of operational parameters under irradiation of green light emitting diodes was studied to optimize catalyst amount, pH, initial dye concentration and amount of H2O2. Recyclability study concern about solution combustion synthesized BiVO4 catalyst has also been done up to 5 cycles in presence of green light emitting diodes irradiation.