Facile fabrication of flower-shaped Bi2WO6 superstructures and visible-light-driven photocatalytic performance

Flower-shaped porous Bi2WO6 superstructures assembled from squared nanoplates have been successfully fabricated by a facile hydrothermal method without any surfactants or additives. Parameter-dependent experiments show that the initial strong acidic condition of the hydrothermal precursor is essential for the construction of tiny nanoplates into hierarchical Bi2WO6 flowers. The sample exhibits improved visible-light-driven photocatalytic activity in the degradation of Rhodamine-B, compared with Bi2WO6 multilayered disks, isolated platelets prepared at elevated pH values and bulk Bi2WO6 obtained by solid state method, respectively. It is believed that the higher BET surface area and nano/mesopore structure can afford more reactive sites and abundant transport paths for the degradation reaction. Moreover, the sample shows excellent circulation stability, suggesting its potential application in dealing with enviromental pollutions.

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► Hierarchical Bi2WO6 microflowers were facilely fabricated by a hydrothermal method.
► The nanoplate-constructed Bi2WO6 flowers have mesoporous (2–15 nm) structure.
► It exhibits superior visible-light photocatalytic degradation activity to RhB.
► It can be easily recycled and shows good photocatalytic circulation stability.