Fe2O3-modified porous BiVO4 nanoplates with enhanced photocatalytic activity

Abstract

As BiVO4 is one of the most popular visible-light-responding photocatalysts, it has been widely used for visiblelight-drivenwater splitting and environmental purification.However, the typical photocatalytic activity of unmodified BiVO4 for the degradation of organic pollutants is still not impressive. To address this limitation, we studied Fe2O3-modified porous BiVO4 nanoplates. Compared with unmodified BiVO4, the Fe2O3-modified porous BiVO4 nanoplates showed significantly enhanced photocatalytic activities in decomposing both dye and colorless pollutant models, such as rhodamine B (RhB) and phenol, respectively. The pseudo-first-order reaction rate constants for the degradation of RhB and phenol on Fe2O3-modified BiVO4 porous nanoplates are 27 and 31 times larger than that of pristineBiVO4, respectively.Wealso found that the Fe2O3 may act as an efficient non-precious metal co-catalyst, which is responsible for the excellent photocatalytic activity of Fe2O3/BiVO4. Graphical Abstract Fe2O3, as a cheap and efficient co-catalyst, could greatly enhance the photocatalytic activity of BiVO4 porous nanoplates in decomposing organic pollutants.