WALAILAK JOURNAL OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Volume 15, No. 11, Month NOVEMBER, Year 2018, Pages 787 - 792

Photocatalytic degradation of organic contaminants by bivo4graphene oxide nanocomposite

Dang Trung Tri TRINH, Duangdao CHANNEI, Willawan KHANITCHAIDECHA, Auppatham NAKARUK

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In the present work, a nanocomposite of bismuth vanadate (BiVO4) and Graphene oxide (GO) was synthesized successfully by using hydrothermal process. The properties of BiVO4/GO nanocomposite were examined by various techniques including X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The XRD data indicated that pure BiVO4 nanoparticles had a monoclinic structure. Similarly, BiVO4/GO nanocomposite had the same structure without the peak of GO due to the transmission from GO to reduced GO during hydrothermal process. TEM images revealed that BiVO4 particles were integrated effectively with the GO sheets. The photocatalysis performance was evaluated by the degradation of methylene blue (MB) in an aqueous under the irradiation of visible light. The result showed that BiVO4/GO nanocomposites had higher photocatalytic activity than pure BiVO4 nanoparticles. The explanation was that GO sheets enhanced the separation of electron–hole pairs and the adsorbent capacity leading to improved photocatalytic activity.

Keywords

BiVO4, Graphene oxide, photocatalysis, nanocomposite, visible light

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