Visible-light-driven indium vanadium oxide nanosheets supported bismuth tungsten oxide nanoflakes heterostructure as an efficient photocatalyst for the tetracycline degradation.

The development of excellent photocatalysts is of great significance for the efficient photocatalytic degradation process, however, the low carrier separation efficiency and poor light absorption ability typically limit the performance of photocatalysts. Herein, a visible light responsive heterostructure composed with indium vanadium oxide nanosheets supported bismuth tungsten oxide nanoflakes (InVO/BiWO) was synthetized through in-situ hydrothermal method. Further, the photocatalytic activity was performed for tetracycline (TC) under visible light illumination. The InVO/BiWO heterostructure builds a strong interface between InVO and BiWO to hinder reunion of photoinduced charge carriers, and provides the sensitive agents for the removal of TC. In particular, the InVO/BiWO photocatalyst prepared by taking 5.0 mg of BiWO shows the highest degradation of TC about 97.42% in 72 min. The quenching experiments identified that hydroxyl radicals, and holes dominated in the photocatalytic process. Furthermore, the optimized nanocomposite is stable even after four cycles, which exposes the excellent photostability and reusability of the photocatalyst. In addition, a plausible degradation pathway and mechanism of TC over InVO/BiWO nanocomposite is also projected.