Hydrothermal synthesis of Bi2O4/NaBiO3 heterostructures with enhanced visible light photocatalytic properties

Novel Bi2O4/NaBiO3 heterostructures were fabricated via a hydrothermal process. By controlling the reaction time, part of NaBiO3 could be in-situ transformed into Bi2O4, which endowed the obtained heterostructures with excellent interfacial contact. The heterostructures were characterized by using XRD, FT-IR, XPS, SEM, EDS mapping and DRS. Degradation of methyl orange (MO) and phenol was used to evaluate the photocatalytic activities of the samples under visible light irradiation. Bi2O4/NaBiO3 heterostructures exhibited enhanced photocatalytic performance compared with bare NaBiO3 and Bi2O4. The increased activity could be attributed to the effective separation and transfer of electron-hole pairs in type II Bi2O4/NaBiO3 heterojunction, which were confirmed by PL and photoelectrochemical tests. Meanwhile, the EPR and trapping experiments revealed that h(+) and center dot O-2(-) played a main role in the photocatalytic degradation reaction.

Automated summary

Novel Bi2O4/NaBiO3 heterostructures were successfully fabricated via a hydrothermal process, exhibiting enhanced photocatalytic performance due to effective separation and transfer of electron-hole pairs. The photocatalytic degradation reaction mainly involved h(+) and center dot O-2(-) according to EPR and trapping experiments.