Enhancement of the visible light photocatalytic activity of heterojunction InO/BiVO composites.

Yin, J.; Huang, S.; Jian, Z.; Pan, M.; Zhang, Y.; Fei, Z.; Xu, X.

Novel InO/BiVO heterojunction composite photocatalysts with tunable InO content were prepared using a mild hydrothermal method. The structure, composition, and optical properties of the InO/BiVO composites were determined by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, UV-Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller surface analysis, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Furthermore, photocatalytic activities of the as-prepared composites were investigated by studying the degradation of methylene blue (MB) solutions under simulated visible light irradiation ( λ > 420 nm). It was found that the 50 % proportion of InO in the InO/BiVO composite exhibited the highest photocatalytic performance, leading to 91 % decomposition of MB within 240 min of irradiation.

PHOTOCATALYSTS; HETEROJUNCTIONS; METALLIC composites; OPTICAL properties of metals; X-ray diffraction; SCANNING electron microscopy

Applied Physics A: Materials Science & Processing, 2015, Vol 120, Issue 4, p1529

0947-8396

Academic Journal

10.1007/s00339-015-9349-z