A review on BiVO 4 photocatalyst: Activity enhancement methods for solar photocatalytic applications

Bismuth vanadate (BiVO4) is a promising visible-light driven semiconductor photocatalyst with various benefits such as low production cost, low toxicity, high photostability, resistance to photo-corrosion and narrow band gap with a good response to visible-light excite. However, the fast recombination of photoinduced charge carriers restricts their photocatalytic activity. In the past decades, many attempts were adopted to enhance the photocatalytic activity of BiVO4. Significant advances in understanding the fundamental issues and the development of an efficient photocatalyst have been made in current years. In this review, we have provided a comprehensive overview of the latest progress on the morphology control and growth mechanism of BiVO4 micro/nano-structures, doping with metal and non-metal elements and semiconductor coupling along with some highlights in the photodegradation of organic pollutants under visible-light illumination. This review may benefit the researchers and engineers in the arena of material chemistry for designing new BiVO4 based photocatalysts with low production cost and high efficiency.