In situ fabrication of BiVO4-CeVO4 heterojunction for excellent visible light photocatalytic degradation of levofloxacin

BiVO4-CeVO4 heterojunction was in situ prepared with hydrothermal method employing bismuth nitrate, cerium nitrate and ammonium vanadate as precursors. The microstructural and crystalline structure of the as-prepared materials were comparatively characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, EDS, XPS, DRS, PL spectroscopy and photoelectrochemical measurement. Compared with bare photocatalysts, the BiVO4-CeVO4 heterojunction showed more efficient visible light photocatalytic activity of levofloxacin degradation, resulting from the enhancement of separation and transfer efficiency of photogenerated electron-hole pairs. The trapping experiments and ESR tests identified that the contribution of active species was in descending order of OH > h+ > O2− in photocatalytic degradation of levofloxacin, and a possible degradation mechanism was also proposed.