Sonochemical assisted impregnation of Bi2WO6 on TiO2 nanorod to form Z-scheme heterojunction for enhanced photocatalytic H2 production

In this work, Bi2WO6/TiO2 nanorod heterojunction was prepared by sonochemical assisted impregnation method. After loading 2 wt% Bi2WO6 on TiO2 nanorods, the photocatalytic hydrogen production rate of 2026 µmol/h/g was achieved. Compared to commercial P25 and TiO2 nanorods, ∼13 and ∼3 folds enhanced activity was observed. The excellent photocatalytic performance of Bi2WO6/TiO2 nanorod photocatalyst was mainly attributed to i) reduction of bandgap due to heterojunction formation, ii) quick transport of photogenerated charge carriers, and iii) efficient charge carrier separation supported by UV-DRS, photocurrent measurement, Impedance study, and photoluminescence spectra analysis. The Z-scheme band alignment for Bi2WO6/TiO2 nanorod heterojunction was proposed based on the Mott-Schottky measurement. This result demonstrated the effective utilization of Z-scheme heterojunction of Bi2WO6/TiO2 for photocatalytic reduction application.