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One-pot hydrothermal fabrication of BiVO4/Fe3O4/rGO composite photocatalyst for the simulated solar light-driven degradation of Rhodamine B

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Abstract

Fabrication of easily recyclable photocatalyst with excellent photocatalytic activity for degradation of organic pollutants in wastewater is highly desirable for practical application. In this study, a novel ternary magnetic photocatalyst BiVO4/Fe3O4/reduced graphene oxide (BiVO4/Fe3O4/rGO) was synthesized via a facile hydrothermal strategy. The BiVO4/Fe3O4 with 0.5 wt% of rGO (BiVO4/Fe3O4/0.5% rGO) exhibited superior activity, degrading greater than 99% Rhodamine B (RhB) after 120 min solar light radiation. The surface morphology and chemical composition of BiVO4/Fe3O4/rGO were studied by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, UV visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy. The free radicals scavenging experiments demonstrated that hole (h+) and superoxide radical (O2•−) were the dominant species for RhB degradation over BiVO4/Fe3O4/rGO under solar light. The reusability of this composite catalyst was also investigated after five successive runs under an external magnetic field. The BiVO4/Fe3O4/rGO composite was easily separated, and the recycled catalyst retained high photocatalytic activity. This study demonstrates that catalyst BiVO4/Fe3O4/rGO possessed high dye removal efficiency in water treatment with excellent recyclability from water after use. The current study provides a possibility for more practical and sustainable photocatalytic process.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51778175); the State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment (Harbin Institute of Technology) (No. 2021TS03).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150090, China

    Shuangyang Zhao, Chengxin Chen, Jie Ding, Shanshan Yang, Yani Zang & Nanqi Ren

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  1. Shuangyang Zhao
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  2. Chengxin Chen
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  3. Jie Ding
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  4. Shanshan Yang
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  5. Yani Zang
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Correspondence to Jie Ding or Shanshan Yang.

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Highlights

• BiVO4/Fe3O4/rGO has excellent photocatalytic activity under solar light radiation.

• It can be easily separated and collected from water in an external magnetic field.

• BiVO4/Fe3O4/0.5% rGO exhibited the highest RhB removal efficiency of over 99%.

• Hole (h+) and superoxide radical (O2•−) dominate RhB photo-decomposition process.

• The reusability of this composite was confirmed by five successive recycling runs.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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Zhao, S., Chen, C., Ding, J. et al. One-pot hydrothermal fabrication of BiVO4/Fe3O4/rGO composite photocatalyst for the simulated solar light-driven degradation of Rhodamine B. Front. Environ. Sci. Eng. 16, 36 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-021-1470-y

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