A negative effect of carbon phase on specific capacity of electrode material consisted of nanosized bismuth vanadate embedded in carbonaceous matrix

•BiVO4 embedded and BiVO4 not embedded in carbonaceous matrix is obtained.•Crystallographic structure is the same pattern for both materials.•The presence of carbon phase stabilizes electrochemical properties of an electrode.•BiVO4 is electrochemical active towards reversible lithium intercalation. Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are widely used all over the world. The LIBs belong to a renewable energy source and energy storage devices. The increase in energy demand causes that new materials of higher energy and higher power densities are still under investigation. Herein, we compare electrochemical properties of bismuth vanadate (BiVO4) embedded and not embedded into carbonaceous matrix as an anode material along with structural changes. Material incorporated into carbon phase (BiVO4@C) exhibited much better electrochemical stability but with lower specific capacity (128 mA h/g) in comparison with pure BiVO4 (217 mA h/g). XRD measurements showed the change in crystallographic structure due to lithium ion intercalation/extraction process. Hence, it seemed obvious that the presence of carbon affected the interfacial structural and electrochemical properties of bismuth vanadate based electrodes.