Preparation of ZnCo2O4/BiVO4 Z-Scheme heterostructures to enhance photocatalytic performance in organic pollutant and antibiotic removal

In this paper, ZnCo2O4/BiVO4 (ZCO/BVO) Z-Scheme heterostructures were prepared by a simple and safe hydrothermal and calcination method. The composition, morphology and structure of the samples were determined through a series of testing characterization tests. By varying the mass fraction of ZCO in the system, it can be seen that the heterogeneous structure possesses the optimal photocatalytic performance at 25 wt% and can remove 97.9 % of rhodamine B (RhB) degradation after 150 min, which is a huge improvement over pure ZCO and pure BVO, and the efficiency of degrading tetracycline hydrochloride (TCH) has also been significantly improved. Combining with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and other tests, we believe that the two form a Z-Scheme heterostructure, which achieves effective separation of photogenerated carriers and effectively enhances the photocatalytic degradation performance.