In the past few decades, our aquatic ecosystem has been significantly impaired due to the exponential growth of industries particularly in the field of textile that typically deal with synthetic chemicals, organic dyes, aromatic compounds as raw materials or by-products. Consequently, our environmental water quality has been severely deteriorated due to the release of such toxic materials which in turn lead to potential threat to living beings. Among several established decontamination techniques used for abatement of pollutants in water, photocatalysis can be considered the most viable one. The advantage of utilizing solar energy makes the photocatalytic technology green, environmental friendly, cost effective which are the prerequisites for sustainable development of the society. However, the major challenges are to develop visible light responsive photocatalysts for proper exploitation of solar energy as well as efficient catalysts for complete degradation of the pollutants. In order to address the issue, in this work, monoclinic bismuth vanadate (m-BiVO₄) powders were synthesized via a facile solid phase method at calcination temperatures of 600°C, 650°C and 700°C. The structural characterizations by XRD and FTIR confirmed the formation of pure m- BiVO₄. Ultraviolet–Visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy validated that the produced particles exhibit strong energy absorption properties in visible region having band gap energy in the range of 2.36-2.4 eV. Besides, synthesis of irregular shaped particles was revealed by FESEM images. On top of that, under visible light exposure, prepared powders demonstrated maximum 90% degradation of Methylene Blue (MB) organic dye within 180 mins of irradiation time which undoubtedly represents excellent photocatalytic behavior of pristine m- BiVO₄.

Photodegradation of methelyne blue

Md Farabi Rahman

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