Facile in situ hydrothermal synthesis of BiVO4/MWCNT nanocomposites as high performance visible-light driven photocatalysts

• BiVO4/MWCNT composites were facilely fabricated via an in situ hydrothermal method.
• BiVO4/MWCNT composites exhibited significantly enhanced visible-light activity.
• BiVO4/MWCNT composites exhibited remarkable visible-light photocatalytic activity.
• Possible photocatalytic mechanism under visible-light irradiation was proposed.

Visible-light responsive monoclinic BiVO4/MWCNT nanocomposites were facilely prepared via an in situ hydrothermal method by using sodium dodecyl sulfonate (SDS) as a guiding surfactant. The as-prepared BiVO4/MWCNT nanocomposites were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Raman spectroscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), the Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. The results showed that the hydrothermal temperature and adding SDS had significant influence on the morphology and size of BiVO4. The photocatalytic activities of BiVO4/MWCNT nanocomposites were investigated by degrading methylene blue (MB) under visible-light irradiation. Remarkable enhancement in photodecomposition of MB was observed with BiVO4/MWCNT composite compared with bare BiVO4 particles. This improvement of photocatalytic was attributed to the effective charge transfer from BiVO4 nanocrystals to MWCNT, which promoted the migration efficiency of photogenerated electron–hole. Furthermore, a possible mechanism for the photocatalytic oxidative degradation was also discussed.