Enhanced visible-light-response photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue on Fe-loaded BiVO_4 photocatalyst

摘要

Pure BiVO_4 and nominal 0.5-5.0 mol% Fe-loaded BiVO_4 samples were synthesized by hydrothermal method. All samples were characterized in order to obtain the correlation between structure and photo-catalytic properties by X-ray diffraction, Brunauer, Emmett and Teller, UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectrophotometry, photoluminescence spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy. The structure of all samples was single-phase monoclinic scheelite. The absorption spectrum of 5.0 mol% Fe-loaded BiVO_4 shifted to the visible region, suggesting the potential application of this material as a superior visible-light driven photocatalyst in comparison with pure BiVO_4. Photocatalytic activities of all photocatalyst samples were examined by studying the degradation of methylene blue under visible light irradiation. The results clearly showed that Fe-loaded BiVO_4 sample exhibited remarkably higher activity than pure BiVO_4.