Facile synthesis and photocatalytic performance of BiVO4 with controllable pumpkin-like microstructure

The controllable synthesis of novel pumpkin-like microstructure BiVO4 has been successfully obtained via a facile hydrothermal method with the aid of surfactant PVP(K30) in the present study. The effects of amount of PVP on the structure, morphology, optical and photocatalytic activity were investigated. The results revealed that the amount of PVP added in reaction mixture played a significant role in formation of pumpkin-like morphology of BiVO4. The as-prepared BiVO4 with 1.0 g PVP exhibited highest photocatalytic activity for degradation of doxycycline under visible light irradiation at room temperature. Based on the evolution process of morphology, a possible formation mechanism was proposed based on the PVP working as a soft template.