A low cost additive-free facile synthesis of BiFeWO/BiVO nanocomposite with enhanced visible-light induced photocatalytic activity.

In this study, visible light driven BiFeWO/BiVO nanocomposite was synthesized via simple additive-free wet-chemical process. Various physicochemical characterization methods such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electrons microscopy (TEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) spectra, UV visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), photoluminescence (PL) and photoelectrochemical measurements were performed to examine the structure, surface morphology, electrochemical and optical behavior of the synthesized material. The photocatalytic performances of the as-synthesized materials were assessed by the photodegradation of methylene blue (MB) in visible-light illumination. The optimum BiFeWO/BiVO-2 nanocomposite has shown 95% degradation efficiency of (MB) after 90min. This is about 10-folds higher than that of pristine bismuth vanadate (BiVO). This enhancement of photocatalytic performances is credited to the photogenerated electrons transfer from BiVO to BiFeWO catalyst surface and thereby reduced the recombination process. The higher photocatalytic activity, long-term stability and recyclability results have revealed that the BiFeWO/BiVO nanocomposite could be an auspicious material for the elimination of organic contaminants present in the ecosystem. Moreover, a probable mechanism for the catalytic degradation of MB dye over BiFeWO/BiVO system is also proposed based on experimental results.