Controllable Synthesis And Enhanced Visible Photocatalytic Degradation Performances Of Bi₂WO₆-carbon Nanofibers Heteroarchitectures

The rapid development of modern industry had brought convenience to our life，but at the same time，the attendant environmental problems were increasingly severe，which had already become a huge challenge for people. Using solar energy to solveenvironmental problems had become an important direction for researchers.Photocatalysis could convert solar energy into electric energy and chemical energy，and using solar energy light to degrade all kinds of organic pollutants in water and air.Therefore，photocatalytic had become a hot spot and focus in recent years’ research.Photocatalyst could be divided into two types， ultraviolet photocatalysis and visiblelight photocatalysis. The UV-visible light photocatalyst representing a higher catalystutilization of solar energy，than the ultraviolet light photocatalyst，and exhibitingsuperior photocatalytic activity. As a catalyst，Bi2WO6had been widely studiedbecause of its excellent physical and chemical properties，but during the usualphotocatalytic process， Bi2WO6nanoparticles were easy to produce complexphenomenon of photo-generated electron and hole pairs，and it also had limitations inrecycling because of its small size. Carbon nanofibers (CNFs)，as an active carrier，ifit can be composited with Bi2WO6， the problems could be solved effectively.In this work，CNFs with smooth surface and uniform size were fabricated byelectrospinning. CNFs as a template， Bi2WO6-CNFs heteroarchitectures werefabricated through ethylene glycol solvothermal processing. The Bi2WO6nanosheetsgrew on the CNFs uniformly. Meanwhile，the results showed that the loading amountsof Bi2WO6on the surface of CNFs could be controlled by adjusting the precursorconcentration for the fabrication of Bi2WO6-CNFs heteroarchitectures during thesolvothermal process. The results showed that there exited interaction betweenBi2WO6and CNFs. The photocatalytic tests revealed that the obtained Bi2WO6-CNFsheteroarchitectures showed higher photocatalytic property under visible light todegrade Rhodamine B than pure Bi2WO6synthesized by solvothermal process in theabsence of CNFs owing to improved separation efficiency of photogeneratedelectrons and holes.Moreover， the Bi2WO6-CNFs heteroarchitectures could beseparated easily by sedimentation due to their one-dimensional nanostructural property. Meanwhile，the photocatalytic activity of Bi2WO6-CNFs heteroarchitectureswas stable during the recycling due to the strong interactions between Bi2WO6nanosheets and CNFs. Trapping experiment suggested that O2·，instead of OH·，wasthe main active species during the photocatalytic process of the Bi2WO6-CNFsheteroarchitectures. Through the above experiment，we obtained Bi2WO6-CNFsheteroarchitectures with higher photocatalytic property.