Synthesis and phase transfer of well-defined BiVO4 nanocrystals for photocatalytic water splitting

Abstract

A method to synthesize BiVO₄ nanoparticles and nanorods hydrothermally using sodium oleate as a capping ligand is presented. The BiVO₄ nanocrystals possessed the expected blue shift in absorbance relative to bulk that occurs with scaling of particle size. Next, we transferred the BiVO₄ nanoparticles from organic solvents to water using two different ligands. These particles were tested as water oxidation and dye reduction catalysts.