The improvement of photocatalysis O2 production over BiVO4 with amorphous FeOOH shell modification

Abstract

A novel amorphous FeOOH modified BiVO4 photocatalyst (A-FeOOH/BiVO4) was successfully produced and characterized by various techniques. The results showed that amorphous FeOOH with about 2 nm thickness evenly covered on BiVO4 surface, which caused resultant A-FeOOH/BiVO4 exhibiting higher visible light photocatalytic performance for producing O2 from water than BiVO4. When the covered amount of amorphous FeOOH was 8%, the resultant photocatalyst possessed the best photocatalytic performance. To find the reasons for the improvement of photocatalytic property, electrochemical experiments, DRS, PL and BET, were also measured, the experimental results indicated that interface effect between amorphous FeOOH and BiVO4 could conduce to migration of photogenerated charge, and exhibit stronger light responded capacity. These positive factors promoted A-FeOOH/BiVO4 presenting improved the photocatalytic performance. In a word, the combination of amorphous FeOOH with BiVO4 is an effective strategy to conquer important challenges in photocatalysis field.