Designing three-dimensional acicular sheaf shaped BiVO4/reduced graphene oxide composites for efficient sunlight-driven photocatalytic degradation of dye wastewater

A simple and cost-effective method for the tailored synthesis of uniform three dimensional (3D) acicular sheaf shaped BiVO4 architectures under mild conditions was designed, where the as-synthesized BiVO4 products were then incorporated with prepared reduced graphene oxide (RGO) sheets to form novel BiVO4/RGO composites. The obtained composites were well characterized with the aid of various techniques to study their morphological, physical, optical, and photo-chemical properties. Photocatalytic performances of the pure 3D BiVO4 architectures and BiVO4/RGO composites have been evaluated by investigating the degradation of Rhodamine B-contained wastewater under natural sunlight irradiation, where the BiVO4/RGO composites displayed enhanced sunlight-driven photocatalytic activities. The effects of the active species involved in the photocatalytic process and the cycle-stability of the as-obtained BiVO4/RGO photocatalysts have also been examined. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.