Bacitracin-assisted synthesis of spherical BiVO4 nanoparticles with C doping for remarkable photocatalytic performance under visible light

Abstract

In this study, a biomimetic method assisted by bacitracin was applied to prepare spherical BiVO₄ nanoparticles. The obtained BiVO₄ nanoparticles were extensively characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, BET, XPS, TGA, FTIR, UV-vis, PL, EIS and photocurrent density tests. The results indicated that bacitracin played a vital role in the induction and assembly of spherical BiVO₄ nanoparticles. At the proper calcination temperature, C doping was achieved in the process of calcining biological templates. Moreover, the spherical BiVO₄ nanoparticles were investigated as photocatalysts for the degradation of tetracycline hydrochloride (TH) under visible light. The spherical BiVO₄ nanoparticles prepared with the present biological template by calcination at 300 °C exhibited the most excellent photocatalytic performance, and 98% TH could be degraded within 60 min under visible light. Compared with other samples, the T-300 sample has a larger exposed reaction surface, narrower band gap and more suitable C content, which all lead to improvement in the photocatalytic activity.