Preparation and Photocatalytic Activity of Cu/BiVO4 by Solid State Grinding Method for Degradation of Methyl Orange

In this work, novel Cu/BiVO4 photocatalyst were prepared by a low-temperature solid state grinding method using Bi (NO3)3•5H2O, NH4VO3 and Cu (NO3)2•2H2O as raw materials. The structure and properties of the samples were characterized by Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and UV-vis diffused reflectance spectroscopy (DRS); Using the degradation of methyl orange (MO) as the probe, it was simulated as the degradation of sewage under the visible light to study the influence of the illumination time and the amount of photocatalysts. Compared with the pure BiVO4, the visible-light absorption scope of BiVO4 was broadened by doping Cu, the UV-Visible absorption edges were slightly red shift and the band gap was narrower. Comparatively speaking, the results indicted that the doped Cu enhanced the photocatalytic activities of BiVO4.