Bismuth-Based Compounds as Visible Light Photocatalyst for Remediation and Water Splitting

Abstract

Enhancing demand for environmental protection has become an urgent need more than ever. For this purpose, water the most known indispensable essences for survivorship of aboveground organisms should be specifically considered. Today, quality of water as dominant source influence of the animate systems has been endangered by various harmful contamination levels. Accordingly, rescuing approaches and cleaning compounds in safe manner demanding for improvement of the quality of potable and industrial utilizing waters are daily pursued. Different materials of bismuth having layered structures, hybridized orbitals, low band gap, and band positions can be attended because of significant ability of water remediation. At this book chapter, we reviewed the photocatalytic efficiency of Bi−compounds, the heterojunction and Z−scheme composites of them, and the synthetization method. Heterojunction or Z−scheme combinations led to obtain high separation photogenerated electrons−hole and reduction of the recombination rate. Furthermore, type II of heterojunction and Z−scheme connections with other Bi- or non-Bi compounds was applied as an effective solution to enhance photocatalytic performance. The major points are related to the activity about (1) water remediation and (2) photoelectrochemical water splitting. The presented review tries to demonstrate the high potential of Bi−compounds and Bi−composites for water remediation and hydrogen and oxygen production through redox reactions of water activated by solar light irradiation, respectively.