Enhanced Photocatalytic Activity and Easy Recovery of Visible Light Active MoSe 2/BiVO 4 Heterojunction Immobilized on Luffa cylindrica – Experimental and DFT study

Chawla, Harshita and Saha, Meghna and Upadhyay, Sumant and Rohilla, Jyoti and Ingole, Pravin Popinand and Sápi, András and Szenti, Imre and Yadav, Mohit and Lebedev, Vasily T. and Chandra, Amrish and Garg, Seema (2021) Enhanced Photocatalytic Activity and Easy Recovery of Visible Light Active MoSe 2/BiVO 4 Heterojunction Immobilized on Luffa cylindrica – Experimental and DFT study. ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE: NANO, 8 (10). pp. 3028-3041. ISSN 2051-8153 (print); 2051-8161 (online)

Text d1en00578b.pdf Restricted to Registered users only Download (7MB)

Abstract

Nanostructured bismuth vanadate (BiVO4) and molybdenum diselenide (MoSe2) heterostructures were prepared by varying the concentration of MoSe2 from 0.05 to 0.2 mol%. The synthesized photocatalysts were used to degrade methylene blue (MB) and phenol and the best activity was found for the 0.15 mol% MoSe2/BiVO4 heterostructure. To address the recovery issue of the photocatalyst from the slurry, 0.15 mol% MoSe2/BiVO4 was immobilized on Luffa cylindrica, which not only solved the recovery problem but also increased the photocatalytic efficiency. The immobilized material showed degradation of MB and phenol up to ∼97% within 2 hours of visible light irradiation. The as-prepared samples were characterized for scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) technique, diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), and Fourier transformation infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy to study the improved catalytic efficiency and gain a deeper understanding of interface formation in the heterojunction. Photoelectrochemical studies were also carried out for all the samples and the highest photocurrent density was achieved in 0.15 mol% MoSe2/BiVO4 compared to other samples. Calculations based on first-principles density functional theory (DFT) have also provided an insightful understanding of the interface formation, physical mechanism, and superior photocatalytic performance of the MoSe2/BiVO4 heterostructure over other samples.

Actions (login required)

Edit Item