Preparation of a Z-scheme BiVO/CuO/PPy heterojunction and studying its CO reducing properties.

Herein, a new Z-scheme BiVO/CuO/PPy heterostructure photocatalyst was developed with bismuth nitrate and ammonium vanadate as the precursors and sodium dodecyl benzyl sulfonate as the soft template. Through the spatial confinement effect of the sodium dodecyl benzyl sulfonate soft template, peanut-like BiVO and the BiVO/CuO/PPy heterojunction were synthesized. The best performance was observed for BiVO/CuO/PPy (5%), and its photodegradation rate was 6.57 times higher than that of pure BiVO. The mechanism study showed that a light hole (h), superoxide radical (·O ), and hydroxyl radical (·OH) participated in the CO reduction process, which was different from the pure BiVO reaction system. Therefore, the proposed approach provides a new method for applying BiVO/CuO/PPy photocatalysts and developing the same type of heterojunction photocatalyst, and they have effective practical application for environmental remediation.