Facile fabrication of AgI/BiVO4 composites with enhanced visible photocatalytic degradation and antibacterial ability

Novel Agl/BiVO4 photocatalysts were successfully synthesized via a simple hydrothermal process for the first time. The synthesized Agl/BiVO4 composites were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), High resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), Scanning electron microscope (SEM), photoluminescence (PL) spectra and DV diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV-DRS) techniques, respectively. The photocatalytic performances of the as-obtained samples were evaluated by photodegradation of rhodamine B (RhB) and killing of Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa) under visible light irradiation. The 20% Agl/BiVO4 showed higher photodegradation and photocatalytic antibacterial activity than the pure AgI and BiVO4. 20% Agl/BiVO4 exhibits the best photocatalytic performance with almost all RhB decomposed within 150 min and the antibacterial rate could achieve over 99.99% after 30 min photocatalytic antibacterial reaction. The photocatalytic antibacterial mechanism of AgliBiVO(4) was investigated by radical trapping experiments. The results revealed that superoxide radical (center dot O (2) over bar) and holes (h(+)) were the dominant active species in the photocatalytic antibacterial process. Furthermore, the 20% AgI/BiVO4 still maintained a high activity after five cycle for killing of P. aeruginosa. The experimental results showed that the synthesized AgliBiVO(4) can be used in water treatment of degradating the organic pollutants and killing the water bacteria at the same time. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.