Advanced chemical compositions and nanoarchitectures of bismuth based complex oxides for solar photocatalytic application

Abstract

Bismuth based complex oxides have attracted considerable interest due to their great potential to harvest solar light to solve the current environmental and energy crisis. Bismuth based complex oxides have excellent photo-oxidation ability for organic contaminant degradation and water oxidation via a photocatalytic process. Many efforts have been made to improve their photocatalytic performance, especially on the BiVO₄, Bi₂WO₆ and Bi₂MoO₆ materials, which have been mostly studied in the past few years. Significant progress in understanding the fundamentals and improving the photocatalytic performance has been made due to the various new developed concepts and approaches in recent years. In this review, we present a comprehensive overview on the fundamentals and recent advances of BiVO₄, Bi₂WO₆ and Bi₂MoO₆ photocatalysts. After the analysis of the structure–property relationships, the strategies that have been employed to enhance their photocatalytic performance are discussed in detail, including morphology control, surface modification, doping and construction of composite material. Furthermore, remarks on the challenges and perspectives of research directions are proposed for further development of the highly efficient bismuth based complex oxide photocatalysts.