Microwave-assisted in situ synthesis of reduced graphene oxide-BiVO4 composite photocatalysts and their enhanced photocatalytic performance for the degradation of ciprofloxacin

To improve the photodegradation efficiency for ciprofloxacin (CIP), a new-type microwave-assisted in situ growth method is developed for the preparation of reduced graphene oxide (RGO) -BiVO 4 composite photocatalysts. The as-produced RGO-BiVO 4 composite photocatalysts show extremely high enhancement of CIP degradation ratio over the pure BiVO 4 photocatalyst under visible light. Specially, the 2   wt% RGO-BiVO 4 composite photocatalyst exhibits the highest CIP degradation ratio (68.2%) in 60   min, which is over 3 times than that (22.7%) of the pure BiVO 4 particles. The enhancement of photocatalytic activities of RGO-BiVO 4 photocatalysts can be attributed to the effective separation of electron–hole pairs rather than the improvement of light absorption .