Effect of water-oil ratio on the photocatalytic performance of visible light-active BiVO4 nanoparticles prepared by inverse microemulsion-calcination method

Jingyuan Huang; Yueyong Ma; Qianqian Chen; Jinyan Zhu; Hongyi Jiang; Hanliang Li; Lian Yi; Haiyan Li; Mei Hong

doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.134454

Effect of water-oil ratio on the photocatalytic performance of visible light-active BiVO₄ nanoparticles prepared by inverse microemulsion-calcination method

Chemosphere. 2022 Jul:299:134454. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.134454. Epub 2022 Mar 29.

Authors

Jingyuan Huang¹, Yueyong Ma¹, Qianqian Chen¹, Jinyan Zhu¹, Hongyi Jiang¹, Hanliang Li¹, Lian Yi¹, Haiyan Li², Mei Hong³

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Organic Pollution Prevention and Control, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen), Shenzhen, 518055, PR China.
² State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Organic Pollution Prevention and Control, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen), Shenzhen, 518055, PR China. Electronic address: haiyanlichonger@163.com.
³ State Key Laboratory of Chemical Oncogenomics, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Nano-Micro Materials Research, School of Chemical Biology & Biotechnology, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School (PKUSZ), Shenzhen, 518055, PR China. Electronic address: hongmei@pku.edu.cn.

PMID: 35364081
DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.134454

Abstract

Nowadays, nano-photocatalysts (NPs) have become the research focus in the field of photocatalysis due to their excellent photocatalytic activity, and microemulsion is an effective method to prepare high-efficiency nano-photocatalysts. Here, BiVO₄ NPs with high efficiency under visible light were prepared by a combination of reverse microemulsion method and calcination method. XRD, SEM, TEM, XPS, DRS, PL, BET and other characterization tests were used to comprehensively explore the influence of water-oil ratio on the physicochemical properties of the catalysts. The results show that BiVO₄ NPs of monoclinic scheelite with high crystallization degree can be obtained by this method. The microscopic morphology, specific surface area and total pore volume of BiVO₄ NPs are significantly affected by the water-oil ratio. It is difficult to obtain BiVO₄ NPs with small particle size and uniform dispersion under the condition of too low or too high water-oil ratio. Meanwhile, the photogenerated carrier recombination efficiency of the catalyst is significantly improved, thus reducing the photocatalytic activity of the catalyst. Strikingly, the BiVO₄ NPs obtained under the condition of water-oil ratio is 20 exhibited well-dispersed nanospheres with diameters ranging from 80 to 100 nm. It has the highest photocatalytic activity due to its high crystallinity, large specific surface area and total pore volume and relatively low photogenerated carrier recombination efficiency. Under visible light irradiation, the degradation efficiency of RhB can reach 97.69% in 100 min, and the rate constant is 0.03253 min^-1.

Keywords: BiVO(4) NPs; Inverse microemulsion method; Photocatalytic degradation; Visible light; Water-oil ratio.