New Understanding on Photocatalytic Mechanism of Nitrogen-Doped Graphene Quantum Dots-Decorated BiVO(4) Nanojunction Photocatalysts

[Image: see text] Bismuth vanadate (BiVO(4)) is a promising candidate as a visible-light-driven photocatalyst in the aspect of practical applications. To investigate the origin of active species from BiVO(4) and understand the influence of the variations of the photocatalytic process, comparative studies on zero-dimensional nitrogen-doped graphene quantum dot (NGQD)-decorated BiVO(4) have been carried out for methylene blue photodegradation. It was found that the hydroxyl group-rich NGQD surface and the established heterojunction structure between NGQDs and BiVO(4) were greatly beneficial for the conversion of the (•)OH radical. With NGQD decoration, the dominant oxidant species for NGQDs/BiVO(4) were confirmed to be (•)OH and H(2)O(2), rather than holes originating from the valence band of unmodified BiVO(4). The synergistic photocatalytic mechanism with respect to the interfacial charge transport and the conversion of active species was proposed. The achievement of the controllable active species significantly altering the activity may be applied for different photocatalytic reactions.