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Facile synthesis of heterojunctions by hydrothermal decoration of CdS on electrospun BiVO4 nanofibers with boosted photocatalytic activity

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Abstract

Bismuth vanadate (BiVO4) is a promising photocatalyst material for photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutions. However, the fast recombination of photo-induced charge and insufficient light absorption often lead to poor photocatalytic performance. Herein, novel fibrous BiVO4/CdS (BVO/CdS) heterostructures are constructed by uniformly modifying caterpillar shaped electrospun BiVO4 nanofibers with controllable quantity of CdS nanoparticles through hydrothermal reaction. The absorption of visible light and separation efficiency of photo-generated charge of BiVO4 are significantly promoted after the decoration of CdS nanoparticles. As a result, the photocatalytic efficiency of the optimized BVO/CdS sample (BVO/CdS-2 stands for the sample synthesized with 0.05 mmol Cd(CH3COO)2 and CH4N2S) is 90.43%, which is 3.3 times as high as that of pure BiVO4 after 180 min irradiation under visible light, respectively. Moreover, the .O2− and .OH are the predominant active species for the degradation process indicated by scavengers added photocatalytic experiments. Due to the simple, low-cost and controllable synthetic process, the BVO/CdS heterojunctions are suitable for practical usage.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Science and Technology Department of Shaanxi Province (2021JM-386), Provincial Joint Fund of Shaanxi (2021JLM-28) and Outstanding Youth Science Fund of Xi’an University of Science and Technology (2019YQ2-06), Priority Research and Development Foundations of Shaanxi Provincial Government (2021GY-215).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Materials Science and Engineering, Xi’an University of Science and Technology, Xi’an, 710054, China

    Long-Gui Peng, Fu-Rong Ni, Jun Liu, Meng Sun, Meng-Jie Chang, Tong Xi, Hui-Lu Li, Hui-Ling Du & Ying Li

  2. School of Safety Science and Engineering, Xi’an University of Science and Technology, Xi’an, 710054, China

    Jie Yang

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  1. Long-Gui Peng
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  2. Fu-Rong Ni
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  3. Jun Liu
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Peng, LG., Ni, FR., Liu, J. et al. Facile synthesis of heterojunctions by hydrothermal decoration of CdS on electrospun BiVO4 nanofibers with boosted photocatalytic activity. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 32, 20891–20902 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-021-06605-y

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