Fabrication of novel fibrous BiVO4/CdS heterostructures by electrospinning method for efficient visible light photodegradation

Novel fibrous BiVO 4 /CdS heterostructures were fabricated for photodegradation of Rhodamine B (RhB) dyes. Caterpillar shaped BiVO 4 nanofibers were produced by electrospinning and post calcinations . Controllable quantity of CdS nanoparticles were uniformly decorated on BiVO 4 fiber surface by electrostatic interaction . Both the BiVO 4 nanofibers and CdS nanoparticles present high crystallinity . The integration of CdS can significantly enhance the absorption of visible light and separation efficiency of photo-generated charge in BiVO 4 /CdS composites. As a result, the photocatalytic efficiency and apparent reaction rate constant of the optimized BiVO 4 /CdS-2 display 1.6 and 3 times as high as that of pure BiVO 4 after 120 min irradiation under visible light, respectively. Moreover, the BiVO 4 /CdS-2 nanofibers show good stability for repeated visible light photocatalytic application. The scavengers added photocatalytic experiments indicate the crucial roles of •O 2 − and h + for the degradation process, and a Z-scheme photocatalytic mechanism was proposed for the BiVO 4 /CdS system. Due to the simple and low-cost synthetic method, the fibrous BiVO 4 /CdS catalysts are suitable for practical applications.