Heterostructured bismuth vanadate multi-shell hollow spheres with high visible-light-driven photocatalytic activity

In this work, a modified carbonaceous spheres sacrificial template growth technique is developed to build up the Bi-V-O heterostructured multi-shell hollow shell composed of BiVO4 and Bi4V2O11 nanoparticles. These Bi-V-O hollow spheres demonstrate a high visible-light-driven photocatalytic activity towards the decomposition of Methylene blue. The Bi-V-O double-shell ones show the best photocatalytic activity due to the effective separation of photogenerated electrons and holes as well as the effective utilization of visible light induced by multiple reflections of their special multi-shell hollow structures.