Abstract:
BiVO
4/BaTiO
3 composites were prepared by mixing-calcining treatment of BaTiO
3 and BiVO
4 nanoparticles. XRD and FTIR analysis indicate that the BiVO
4/BaTiO
3 composite is consisted of BiVO
4 and BaTiO
3, and no trace of impurity phase is detected. TEM observation exhibits that the BaTiO
3 nanoparticles with~55 nm are decorated on the surface of BiVO
4 particles with an average size of~400 nm. The photocatalytic activity of BiVO
4/BaTiO
3 composites was evaluated by the degradation of acid orange 7(AO7) under simulated sunlight irradiation, revealing that the BiVO
4/BaTiO
3 composites exhibit improved photocatalytic activity compared to bare BaTiO
3. The photocatalytic activity of BiVO
4/BaTiO
3 composite achieves the optical value when the content of BiVO
4 reaches 8wt% and about 68% of dye is degraded after 6 h exposure, which is 1.9 times of bare BaTiO
3. Moreover, the BiVO
4/BaTiO
3 composite has good photocatalytic stability and the degradation percentage of AO7 maintains~62% for three consecutive runs. The analysis of the photocatalytic mechanism suggests that the enhancement of the photocatalytic activity for the BiVO
4/BaTiO
3 composite is attributed to the photogenerated electron-hole pairs separation derived from the charge migration between BiVO
4 and BaTiO
3.