title: Tailored Fabrication of Thoroughly Mesoporous BiVO4 Nanofibers and Their Visible-Light Photocatalytic Activities.
abstract: Bismuth vanadate (BiVO4) is considered as a potentially attractive candidate for the O2 evolution and photodegradation of organic pollutants. In an effort to develop visible-light-driven photocatalysts with high activities, the thoroughly mesoporous BiVO4 nanofibers were fabricated via a foaming-assisted electrospinning strategy. It was found that the introduced foaming agent of diisopropyl azodiformate within the solutions plays a crucial role on the formation of thoroughly mesoporous BiVO4 nanofibers, making their growth tunable. The obtained mesoporous BiVO4 nanofibers possess well-defined one-dimensional mesoporous architectures with high purity in their morphology and a surface area of 22.5 m(2)/g, which is ∼4 times that of conventional solid counterparts (5.8 m(2)/g). Accordingly, they exhibit much higher efficient photocatalytic activities toward the degradation of rhodamine B under visible-light irradiation, which is 3 times that of conventional solid counterparts, suggesting their promising application as novel and efficient photocatalysts for water purification.
authors.affiliation: Research Institute of Surface Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology , Taiyuan City 030024, P. R. China.|Institute of Materials, Ningbo University of Technology , Ningbo City 315016, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Huabing
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Materials, Ningbo University of Technology , Ningbo City 315016, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Huilin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hou
authors.affiliation: Institute of Materials, Ningbo University of Technology , Ningbo City 315016, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Fengmei
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: Research Institute of Surface Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology , Taiyuan City 030024, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Xiaohong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Yao
authors.affiliation: Institute of Materials, Ningbo University of Technology , Ningbo City 315016, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Weiyou
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Yang
keywords: BiVO4; electrospinning; mesoporous; nanofibers; photocatalytic activities