Preparation of a Z-scheme BiVO4/Cu2O/PPy heterojunction and studying its CO2 reducing properties

Herein, a new Z-scheme BiVO4/Cu2O/PPy heterostructure photocatalyst was developed with bismuth nitrate and ammonium vanadate as the precursors and sodium dodecyl benzyl sulfonate as the soft template. Through the spatial confinement effect of the sodium dodecyl benzyl sulfonate soft template, peanut-like BiVO4 and the BiVO4/Cu2O/PPy heterojunction were synthesized. The best performance was observed for BiVO4/Cu2O/PPy (5%), and its photodegradation rate was 6.57 times higher than that of pure BiVO4. The mechanism study showed that a light hole (h+), superoxide radical (·O2−), and hydroxyl radical (·OH) participated in the CO2 reduction process, which was different from the pure BiVO4 reaction system. Therefore, the proposed approach provides a new method for applying BiVO4/Cu2O/PPy photocatalysts and developing the same type of heterojunction photocatalyst, and they have effective practical application for environmental remediation.