A facile synthesis route and photo-catalytic properties of mixed-phase bismuth molybdate

The polymorphs (α – Bi2Mo3O12, β – Bi2Mo2O9, γ – Bi2MoO6) of bismuth molybdate (BMO) exhibit photo-catalytic activity. Among them, the β phase exhibits good photo electrochemical (PEC) performance but suffers from stability issues. In this work, mixed-phase BMO compounds were synthesized using a facile co-precipitation route. The processed BMO showed a band gap of 2.46 eV. The sample with predominantly γ-BMO (γ – Bi2MoO6) with lower α and β content exhibited better photo-electrochemical performance with a photocurrent density of 1.12 μA/cm2 and lower charge transfer resistance compared to the BMO-1 sample with a larger amount of α and β phases. Both the samples displayed n-type conductivity and excellent photoresponse under chopped illumination.