Synthesis and visible photocatalytic activity of new photocatalyst MBi2O4(M = Cu, Zn)

Spinel MBi2O4(M = Cu, Zn) were synthesized by a special sol-gel method, and we report the photocatalytic activity of novel photocatalyst MBi2O4 under visible light irradiation. The prepared samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscope. The chemical composition of these photocatalysts was confirmed by SEM-EDS spectrum and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The results indicated that the chemical formulas of the samples are CuBi2O4 and ZnBi2O4, which was no report before. All of them exhibited high photocatalytic activity for the degradation of industrial dyes, the 2 h degradation values of ZnBi2O4 and CuBi2O4 for brilliant red K-2G are 91.5 and 72.6 %, and the 2 h degradation values for acid red B are 99.8 and 89.8 %, respectively. These characteristics make the photocatalysts to be promising candidates for the photocatalytic degradation of dyes.