Microstructure and Characteristic of BiVO₄ Prepared under Different pH Values: Photocatalytic Efficiency and Antibacterial Activity

Zhengyao Qu; Peng Liu; Xiaoyu Yang; Fazhou Wang; Wenqin Zhang; Chenggang Fei

doi:10.3390/ma9030129

Microstructure and Characteristic of BiVO₄ Prepared under Different pH Values: Photocatalytic Efficiency and Antibacterial Activity

Materials (Basel). 2016 Feb 25;9(3):129. doi: 10.3390/ma9030129.

Authors

Zhengyao Qu¹, Peng Liu², Xiaoyu Yang³, Fazhou Wang⁴, Wenqin Zhang⁵, Chenggang Fei⁶

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Silicate Building Materials, School of Materials Science and Technology, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China. quzhengyao@whut.edu.cn.
² School of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Life Science, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China. liup567@163.com.
³ State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China. xyyang@whut.edu.cn.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Silicate Building Materials, School of Materials Science and Technology, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China. fzhwang@whut.edu.cn.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Silicate Building Materials, School of Materials Science and Technology, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China. wqzhang@whut.edu.cn.
⁶ School of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Life Science, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China. 593323214@qq.com.

Abstract

In the present study, BiVO₄ sample was prepared under different pH 0.5-13 without capping agent. Different morphology characteristics were observed, such as sheet crystal structure, cross crystal structure and branching crystal structure. The mechanism of the formation of BiVO₄ nanostructure was discussed. Under acid condition, sheet crystal structure was obtained. The phenomenon could be attributed to polymerization of vanadate in the presence of H⁺. In the weak alkaline solution, across structure and branching type morphology was obtained. The photocatalytic efficiency for the samples ranked as pH 5 > pH 3 > pH 7 > pH 9 > pH 1 > pH 11 > pH 13 > blank, which is in good agreement with X-ray diffraction (XRD) result. E. coli envelop was damaged in the presence of BiVO₄ under visible light. The protrusion on envelop was diminished by BiVO₄. Attenuated Total Reflection Fourier transformed Infrared Spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) results suggested the intensity was weakened for the amide, phosphoric, -COO^- group and C-H bond in lipopolysaccharides (LPS), peptidoglycan and periplasm molecules.

Keywords: BiVO4; E. coli; envelop; monoclinic scheelite structure; photocatalytic efficiency.