Facile construction of Bi2WO6/TiO2 microspheres heterojunction for boosting photocatalytic degradation of organic dyes

Flower-like Bi2WO6 microspheres and TiO2 spherical particles were prepared by a facile hydrothermal method without any surfactant or template. A unique Z-Scheme Bi2WO6/TiO2 heterojunction was successfully synthesized via a simple physical mixing method. The effect of mass ratio on the structure, morphology, optical properties, BET surface area and photocatalytic performance evaluated by degradation of organic dyes including Rhodamine B (RhB), methylene blue (MB) and methyl orange (MO) under solar irradiation was systemically investigated. When the mass ratio of Bi2WO6 to TiO2 was 1:4, the Bi2WO6/TiO2 composites exhibited the highest photocatalytic degradation efficiency, the highest degradation efficiency of RhB and MB reached 95.2 % and 89.3 %, which could be attributed to the construction of heterojunction structure between TiO2 and Bi2WO6. The optical absorption capacity of Bi2WO6/TiO2 composites was stronger than pure TiO2. Furthermore, the radical-quenching experiments proved that ·O2– and h+ played crucial roles in the photocatalytic reaction. The suitable band potential of Bi2WO6 (3.19 eV) and TiO2 (2.89 eV) revealed the Z-Scheme pathway and possible photocatalytic mechanism of Bi2WO6/TiO2 composites for organic dyes degradation. Thus, the direct Z-scheme Bi2WO6/TiO2 heterojunction effectively promoted separation of photogenerated electron-hole pairs, resulting in higher photocatalytic activity.