Highly efficient BiVO₄ single-crystal nanosheets with dual modification: phosphorus doping and selective Ag modification

BiVO4, a visible-light response photocatalyst, has shown tremendous potential because of abundant raw material sources, good stability and low cost. There exist some limitations for further applicaitions due to poor capability to separate electron-hole pairs. In fact, a single-component modification strategy is barely adequate to obtain highly efficient photocatalytic performance. In this work, P substituted some of the V atoms from VO4 oxoanions, namely P was doped into the V sites in the host lattice of BiVO4 by a hydrothermal route. Meanwhile, Ag as an attractive and efficient electron-cocatalyst was selectively modified on the (010) facet of BiVO4 nanosheets via facile photo-deposition. As a result, the obtained dually modified BiVO4 sheets exhibited enhanced photocatalytic degradation property of methylene blue (MB). In detail, photocatalytic rate constant (k) was 2.285 min(-1) g(-1), which was 2.78 times higher than pristine BiVO4 nanosheets. Actually, P-doping favored the formation of O vacancies, led to more charge carriers, and facilitated photocatalytic reaction. On the other hand, metallic Ag loaded on (010) facet effectively transferred photogenerated electrons, which consequently helped electron-hole pairs separation. The present work may enlighten new thoughts for smart design and controllable synthesis of highly efficient photocatalytic materials.