Low temperature-synthesis of BiVO4 nanorods using polyethylene glycol as a soft template and the visible-light-activity for copper acetylacetonate decomposition

Synthesis and characterization of a novel BiVO4/SiO2 nanocomposites

“…It is known that the specific surface area of a photocatalyst is a key factor for its photocatalytic activity. The measured BET specific surface area of the BiVO 4 /SiO 2 hybrid material, with the average pore size of 15.22 nm, was 25.59 m 2 g -1 , which was larger than that of pure BiVO 4 particle [12]. The enlarged surface area, which improved the photocatalytic efficiency, should be attributed to the introduction of amorphous SiO 2 on the surface of BiVO 4 .…”

Novel synthesis and photocatalytic performance of BiVO4 with tunable morphologies and macroscopic structures

“…Note that organic materials are commonly used as template, which are easily removed with solvent or heating procedures. For example, monoclinic sheelite BiVO 4 nanorods can be obtained with polyethylene glycol as a soft template [23]. The asprepared monoclinic sheelite BiVO 4 nanorods were proved to exhibit a high level of photocatalytic activity for copper acetylacetonate under illumination of visible-light.…”

Solvothermal synthesis of nanostructured BiVO4 with highly exposed (0 1 0) facets and enhanced sunlight-driven photocatalytic properties

“…Diffuse reflectance UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectra were recorded on a Shimadzu UV-3600 spectrophotometer mounted with an integrating sphere. The reflectance (R) was recorded using BaSO 4 as a standard, and the band gap energies of the samples were determined from the absorption edge of the absorbance spectra represented by the Kubelka-Munk function, f(R) = (1 − R) 2 /2R [35]. Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectra were recorded on an Agilent Cary 630 spectrometer with a KBr disk.…”

“…They are therefore unstable during the crystal growth as a result of reducing total surface energy of crystals [30]. Up to now, a number of methods have been used to synthesize m-BiVO 4 , such as solid-state reaction [31][32][33][34], aqueous process [19,35], sol-gel method [36], flame spray pyrolysis [37], hydrothermal method [21,29,[38][39][40], microwave-assisted synthesis [41] and solvothermal route [42]. However, most of the synthesized m-BiVO 4 samples are generally dominated by randomly orientation without expected exposure of (0 1 0) facets.…”