Cotton fabric-based rGO/BiVO4 recyclable photocatalytic nanocomposites for dye degradation under visible light

Photocatalytic degradation of printing and dyeing wastewater has many advantages, such as non-toxicity, low energy consumption, simple operation, mild reaction conditions and wide application range etc. However, the difficulties in photocatalyst recovery and non-reusable problems hinder the further commercialization of photocatalytic technology. In this work, a novel large-scale recyclable cotton fabric-based rGO/BiVO4 photocatalytic nanocomposites was fabricated for dye degradation under visible light. The loading of rGO inhibits the recombination of photoelectron-hole pairs and improves the photocatalytic activity of BiVO4. The results showed that the degradation efficiency of methylene blue (MB) was as high as 96.9% after 190 min visible light irradiation and its value was still above 95% after three cycles. Furthermore, photocurrent response, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and electron spin resonance (ESR) were used to analyze the mechanism of improved photocatalytic properties of the cotton fabric-based rGO/BiVO4 nanocomposites. This kind of fabric-based photocatalytic nanocomposites is expected to have a broad application in wastewater treatment.