Visible light assisted photocatalytic degradation of crystal violet dye and electrochemical detection of ascorbic acid using a BiVO4/FeVO4 heterojunction composite

Muhammad Munir Sajid; Sadaf Bashir Khan; Naveed Akthar Shad; Nasir Amin; Zhengjun Zhang

doi:10.1039/c8ra03890b

Visible light assisted photocatalytic degradation of crystal violet dye and electrochemical detection of ascorbic acid using a BiVO₄/FeVO₄ heterojunction composite

RSC Adv. 2018 Jun 27;8(42):23489-23498. doi: 10.1039/c8ra03890b.

Authors

Muhammad Munir Sajid^{1

2}, Sadaf Bashir Khan², Naveed Akthar Shad^{1

3}, Nasir Amin¹, Zhengjun Zhang⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics, Government College University Allama Iqbal Road Faisalabad 38000 Pakistan.
² The State Key Laboratory for New Ceramics & Fine Processing, School of Materials Science & Engineering, Tsinghua University Beijing China 100084.
³ National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (NIBGE) P. O. Box. 577, Jhang Road Faisalabad Pakistan.
⁴ Advanced Key Laboratory for New Ceramics, School of Materials Science & Engineering, Tsinghua University Beijing China 100084 zjzhang@tsinghua.edu.cn.

Abstract

A BiVO₄/FeVO₄ nanocomposite photocatalyst was successfully synthesized via a hydrothermal method. The prepared heterojunction photocatalyst was characterized physically and chemically using XRD, SEM, EDX, XPS, BET, FT-IR, Raman, UV-vis DRS, EPR and photoluminescence techniques. BiVO₄/FeVO₄ was explored for its photocatalytic activity by the decomposition of crystal violet (CV) organic dye under visible radiation. This experiment showed that BiVO₄/FeVO₄ at a ratio of 2 : 1 completely degrades CV within 60 min. In addition, BiVO₄/FeVO₄ was investigated for the electrochemical detection of the useful analyte ascorbic acid using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and cyclic voltammetry techniques. This work reveals the potential of the BiVO₄/FeVO₄ nanocomposite for applications in environmental disciplines as well as in biosensing.