Polyethylene glycol-doped BiZnVO as a high-efficiency solar-light-activated photocatalyst with substantial durability toward photodegradation of organic contaminations.

In this study, we focus on a simple, low-priced, and mild condition hydrothermal route to construct BiZnVO nanocompounds (NCs) as a novel photocatalyst with strong solar light absorption ability for environmental purification using solar energy. NCs were further doped with polyethylene glycol (PEG) to improve their photocatalytic efficiency for photodegradation processes through inhibition of fast charge carrier recombination rates and higher charge separation efficiency. Surface morphology, phase structure, optical characteristics, and band structure of the as-prepared samples were analyzed using XRD, EDX, XPS, SEM, UV-vis spectroscopy, CL, and BET techniques. PEG-doped BiZnVO NCs were applied as effective materials to degrade various kinds of organic pollutants including cationic and anionic types, and these NCs exhibited excellent photocatalytic efficiency as compared to traditional photocatalysts. In particular, the PEG-doped BiZnVO (0.10% w/v) photocatalyst exhibited highly enhanced photocatalytic performance with improvements of about 46.4, 28.3, and 7.23 folds compared with PEG-doped ZnO nanorods (NRs), pristine BiVO, and BiZnVO samples, respectively, for the decomposition of congo red (CR) dye. After 40 minutes of sunlight irradiation, 97.4% of CR was decomposed. In this study, scavenging experiments indicated that both hydroxyl radicals and holes play dominant roles in CR photodegradation under simulated solar light irradiation. Meanwhile, the optimal photocatalyst demonstrated good reproducibility and stability for successive cycles of photocatalysis.