3D-3D porous Bi2WO6/graphene hydrogel composite with excellent synergistic effect of adsorption-enrichment and photocatalytic degradation

•3D-3D porous Bi2WO6/graphene hydrogel (BWO/GH) composite was synthesized by a facile one-step hydrothermal method.•It achieves the homogeneous dispersion of the 3D flower-like BWO in GH by controlling the growth of BWO precursors.•3D-structured BWO/GH composite realized the synergistic effect of adsorption and photocatalysis.•The 3D multilevel structure of BWO/GH composite highly improves the utilization rate of light.•It shows new insights for the development of BWO/GH photocatalyst and application of water purification in dynamic system.

A novel visible-light 3D-3D Bi2WO6/graphene hydrogel (BWO/GH) photocatalyst with the synergistic effect of adsorption and photocatalysis has been successfully synthesized by a facile one-step hydrothermal method and is applied in environment remediation. 3D porous graphene hydrogel, in which 3D-structured flower-like BWO as an efficient photocatalyst is homogenously distributed, not only exhibits the great absorption toward the organic pollution, but also provides multidimensional quality and electron transfer channels. The 3D-3D structure of BWO/GH composite is beneficial to light refraction and reflection, which highly improves the utilization rate of light. The synergistic effect of the 3D-3D BWO/GH composite greatly enhanced the removal rates of organic pollutants and it is ease of separation and recycling in water purification. The removal rate of methylene blue (MB) by BWO/GH composite is about 2.3 times as that of the pure BWO in static systems, and the removal rates of MB and 2, 4-dichlorophenol (2, 4-CDP) are about 1.3 and 3 times as these of the pure BWO in dynamic system. When the irradiation time lasted for 74 h, the removal rate of MB is nearly unchanged and still kept at 36.1%, indicating that the 3D BWO/GH composite has a high stability. The construction of BWO/GH composite resolved the adsorption saturation problem of GH and improved the photocatalytic activity of BWO, thus greatly improved the removal rate of water pollutants.

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