Ag2O-decorated electrospun BiVO4 nanofibers with enhanced photocatalytic performance

Semiconductor photocatalysts are emerging as tools for pollutant degradation in industrial wastewater, air purification, antibacterial applications, etc. due to their use of visible light, which is abundant in sunlight. Here, we report a new type of p–n junction Ag2O/BiVO4 heterogeneous nanostructured photocatalyst with enhanced photocatalytic performance. P-type Ag2O nanoparticles were in situ reduced and assembled on the surface of electrospun BiVO4 nanofibers using ultraviolet (UV) irradiation; this process hindered the recombination of localized photogenerated electron–hole pairs, and hence resulted in the enhanced photocatalytic activity of the BiVO4/Ag2O nanocomposites. The photocatalytic activities of the obtained BiVO4 and BiVO4/Ag2O nanocomposites were assessed by measuring the degradation of rhodamine B (RhB) under visible light. The 10 wt% Ag2O/BiVO4 sample yielded the optimum degradation of RhB (98.47%), much higher than that yielded by pure BiVO4 nanofibers (64.67%). No obvious change in the XRD pattern of an Ag2O/BiVO4 sample occurred as a result of its use in the photocatalytic reaction, indicating its excellent stability. The high photocatalytic performance observed was attributed to the large surface-to-volume ratio of the essentially one-dimensional electrospun BiVO4 nanofibers and to the in situ growth of p-type Ag2O on the surface of the n-type BiVO4 nanofibers.