Fabrication of BiVO4/ reduced graphene oxide photocatlyst for hexavalent chromium reduction under visible region

• Novel BiVO 4 /rGO photo was successfully fabricated. • BiVO 4 /rGO photocatalyst exhibited excellent photocatalytic activity towards Cr(VI) reduction. • rGO act as an electron mediator to improve the charge separation and reduce the recombination. • Charge transfer process was confirmed and mechanism investigated. Bismuth vanadate (BiVO 4 ) is widely used as a visible light photocatalyst for elimination of organic and inorganic pollutants in aqueous solution. An integration with few layer graphene oxide into BiVO 4 , significantly enhance the photocatalytic activity in the visible region due to it’s high charge transport and separation. Herein, we have designed BiVO 4 on reduced graphene oxide (rGO) photocatalyst synthesised via simple solution phase method. BiVO 4 nanocrystals nanoplates were fabricated using bismuth (III) nitrate, ammonium metavanadate with ammonium hydroxide, and polyethylene glycol as a stabilising agent. The resulting photocatalytic catalyst showed an excellent activity towards Cr(VI) removal (as a model inorganic pollutant) under visible light, which is evidenced with photoelectrochemical studies. The photocatalytic performance for Cr(VI) removal rates over BiVO 4 /rGO showed much higher activity than BiVO 4 in visible light. Furthermore, the catalyst efficiency was confirmed through photoelectrochemical, and optoelectronic properties.