Enhancing visible light photocatalytic activity of BiOBr/rod-like BiPO4 through a heterojunction by a two-step method

Abstract

Visible light driven BiOBr/rod-like BiPO₄ composites with different BiOBr to BiPO₄ molar ratios were fabricated via a facile deposition-precipitation method. X-ray powder diffraction, field emission scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, UV-Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller surface area were used to characterize the as-synthesized samples. Results showed that the BiOBr/rod-like BiPO₄ composite with equal mole ratio exhibited the best photocatalytic performance for rhodamine B (RhB) degradation under visible light irradiation. The enhanced photocatalytic performance could be mainly attributed to the effective separation of the photogenerated electrons and holes at the heterojunction interface of p-BiOBr and n-BiPO₄.