Bismuth oxyiodide incorporated reduced graphene oxide nanocomposite material as an efficient photocatalyst for visible light assisted degradation of organic pollutants

Abstract

Herein, Bismuth oxyiodide (BiOI) – reduced graphene oxide (rGO) photocatalysts were prepared via simple hydrothermal method. The BiOI-rGO photocatalyst exhibited high crystallinity with tetragonal phase of BiOI. In addition, the electronic interaction between rGO sheet and BiOI reduced the band-gap value from 1.86 eV of bare BiOI to 1.51 eV of BiOI-rGO (6 wt%) photocatalyst. More interestingly, the rGO showed a strong influence on tailoring the morphology of BiOI to different nanostructures with different rGO loading (wt%), which further reflected differences in the photocatalytic activity. A significant quenching in the photoluminescence intensity of rGO supported BiOI photocatalyst confirmed the effective suppression of electron-hole pair recombination. The optimized rGO (4 wt%) loaded BiOI photocatalyst significantly improved the photocatalytic activity (∼85%) towards the degradation of methyl orange (MO) dye compared to that of pristine BiOI (∼29%). Thus, around three folds enhancement in the photocatalytic activity of BiOI–rGO (4 wt%) catalyst was mainly attributed to ultrafast separation of electron–hole pairs and rapid transportation of carriers by rGO support. The superior photocatalytic activity demonstrated by this newly synthesized BiOI-rGO photocatalyst makes it's a potential candidate for environmental remediation process.