Preparation of BiPO4-Polyaniline Hybrid and its Enhanced Photocatalytic Performance

Abstract

Recently, BiPO4 has been proved to be an efficient photocatalyst which exhibits more attractive activity than that of TiO2-P25 under UV irradiation. However, photocatalytic oxidation-reduction ability of BiPO4 under visible light still needs to be improved. Conjugated polymer just like polyaniline was demonstrated to be a new and efficient visible co-photocatalyst in the field of pollutant governance. As far as we know, the attempt to enhance the photochemical ability of BiPO4 by employing polyaniline as a co-photocatalyst is still very limited. Hence, in order to testify the potential enhanced performance of such heterostructure, BiPO4-polyaniline heterostructure was prepared via hydrothermal method and hybridization in this paper. The experimental results indicated that several typical pollutants such as organic dyes and heavy metal ions can be effectively removed by BiPO4-polyaniline under visible light. The enhanced removal mechanism was attributed to the high separation efficiency of photo-induced electron-hole pairs and more efficient absorption of visible light after the loading of polyaniline on the surface of BiPO4 as an out-layer compared with single BiPO4.