Design of Bismuth Tungstate BiWO Photocatalyst for Enhanced and Environmentally Friendly Organic Pollutant Degradation.

In this study, a chemical precipitation approach was adopted to produce a photocatalyst based on bismuth tungstate BiWO for enhanced and environmentally friendly organic pollutant degradation. Various tools such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), optical spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, were employed to assess the structural and morphological properties. Hence, the XRD profiles showed a well crystallized BiWO orthorhombic phase. The photocatalytic performance of the resulting photocatalyst was assessed by the decomposition of Rhodamine B (RhB) and methyl orange (MO) with a decomposition efficiency of 97 and 92%, along with the highest chemical oxygen demand of 82 and 79% during 120 min of illumination, respectively. The principal novelty of the present work is to focus on the changes in the crystalline structure, the morphology, and the optical and the photoelectrochemical characteristics of the BiWO, by tuning the annealing temperature of the designed photocatalyst. Such physicochemical property changes in the as-prepared photocatalyst will affect in turn its photocatalytic activity toward the organic pollutant decomposition. The photocatalytic mechanism was elaborated based on electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, photocurrent analysis, photoluminescence spectroscopy, and radical trapping measurements. The overall data indicate that the superoxide O and holes h are the principal species responsible for the pollutant photodegradation.