Novel Y doped BiVO4 thin film electrodes for enhanced photoelectric and photocatalytic performance

Y3+ doped BiVO4 powder has been shown the potential to be an efficient photocatalyst for water splitting and hydrocarbon gas degradation. However, the photoelectric property of YxBi1-xVO4 has not been investigated. What's more, in some special fields, it is vital to apply thin film and it is electrode instead of powder due to some kind of necessity, such as thin film solar cell and photoelectrocatalysis. Also, there is less report on the photoelectric and photocatalytic properties of Y3+ doped BiVO4 thin film. Here, relatively dense and flat YxBi1-xVO4 thin film was in-situ fabricated on FTO substrate by using a solution polymeric method. It was found that by increasing Y3+ content, the crystalline phase of the YxBi1-xVO4 thin film changed from monoclinic and tetragonal mixture phase to tetragonal solid solution phase, and the conduction band of YxBi1-xVO4 film showed more negatively shift. For the first time, we extensively investigated the photocurrent, incident photon to current efficiency (IPCE) and photoinduced hydrophilicity properties of YxBi1-xVO4 thin film electrode. Their corresponding electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, which revealed charge transfer characteristics were studied simultaneously. Due to the excellent photoelectric performance, the Y0.05Bi0.95VO4 (composite of monoclinic BiVO4 and tetragonal YVO4) thin film electrode exhibited the best photocatalytic activity to degrade Rhodamine B in water than other thin film electrodes. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.