Enhanced the Efficiency of Photocatalytic Degradation of Methylene Blue by Construction of Z-Scheme g-C3N4/BiVO4 Heterojunction

Abstract

Both non-metallic g-C3N4 and BiVO4 are novel photocatalysts responsive to visible light, but their low charge separation efficiency restricts their inconspicuous photocatalytic activity. In this paper, direct Z-type g-C3N4/BiVO4 photocatalyst was constructed by calcination and hydrothermal for the degradation of methylene blue. The existence of g-C3N4/BiVO4 heterojunction was confirmed by the detailed study of its chemical structure and morphology by various characterization methods, such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning electron microscope (SEM), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The evaluation of photocatalytic performance showed that the MB degradation performance of 1.0-CN/BVO was significantly enhanced, which was 4.528 times and 2.387 times higher than pristine BiVO4 and g-C3N4, respectively, which was mainly due to the enhanced light capture ability and effective electron transfer in the photocatalytic reaction. The 1.0-CN/BVO composite exhibited extremely catalytic stability and recyclability.