The improvement of photocatalysis O(2) production over BiVO(4) with amorphous FeOOH shell modification

A novel amorphous FeOOH modified BiVO(4) photocatalyst (A-FeOOH/BiVO(4)) was successfully produced and characterized by various techniques. The results showed that amorphous FeOOH with about 2 nm thickness evenly covered on BiVO(4) surface, which caused resultant A-FeOOH/BiVO(4) exhibiting higher visible light photocatalytic performance for producing O(2) from water than BiVO(4). When the covered amount of amorphous FeOOH was 8%, the resultant photocatalyst possessed the best photocatalytic performance. To find the reasons for the improvement of photocatalytic property, electrochemical experiments, DRS, PL and BET, were also measured, the experimental results indicated that interface effect between amorphous FeOOH and BiVO(4) could conduce to migration of photogenerated charge, and exhibit stronger light responded capacity. These positive factors promoted A-FeOOH/BiVO(4) presenting improved the photocatalytic performance. In a word, the combination of amorphous FeOOH with BiVO(4) is an effective strategy to conquer important challenges in photocatalysis field.