Fabrication of nanoplate-like g-C 3 N 4 /Bi 12 TiO 20 heterojunction with enhanced visible-light photocatalytic activity

Abstract In recent years, the high-efficient visible-light-driven photocatalyst has become a research focus to realize the large-scale application of semiconductor photocatalysis. Herein, a novel nanoplate-like g-C 3 N 4 /Bi 12 TiO 20 (CN/BTO) heterojunction was prepared by a facile hydrothermal-annealing method for visible-light photocatalysis, and its morphology, structure and optical property were characterized systematically. The characterization results verify that the C O bond exists between g-C 3 N 4 and BTO, thus confirming the formation of CN BTO heterojunction. Furthermore, the CN/BTO heterojunctions display much higher photocatalytic performance for Rhodamine B (RhB) degradation than pure BTO and g-C 3 N 4 under visible light irradiation. Among them, the CN/BTO-3 sample with 60 wt% of g-C 3 N 4 exhibits the highest photocatalytic activity. The excellent photocatalytic activity can be primarily attributed to the energy band match and the heterojunction that can accelerate the migration and separation of photo-generated charge carriers. This kind of nanoplate-like CN/BTO heterojunction may find potential applications in numerous fields related to environment and energy.