Oxygen vacancy regulation in Nb-doped BiWO for enhanced visible light photocatalytic activity

Novel Nb-doped Bi 2 WO 6 nanosheets have been successfully synthesized by a simple hydrothermal method. XRD, Raman spectra, XPS and SEM were adopted to analyze the structure and morphology of the samples, then the structure-dependent optical properties, photoelectric behavior and photocatalytic activities were investigated, and the structure-property relationship was also discussed. The results show that doping Nb 5+ can increase the oxygen vacancies in the Bi 2 WO 6 lattice and reduce the optical band gap of Bi 2 WO 6 . The oxygen vacancies also act as electron traps, which promote the separation of photogenerated carriers. Hence, compared with the pure Bi 2 WO 6 , the as-prepared Nb-doped Bi 2 WO 6 nanosheets exhibit enhanced visible-light photocatalytic activity for removing contaminants in water such as rhodamine B and tetracycline. Novel Nb-doped Bi 2 WO 6 nanosheets have been successfully synthesized by a simple hydrothermal method.