Synthesis of CC/BiPO<sub>4</sub>/Bi<sub>2</sub>WO<sub>6</sub> Composite Material and Its Photocatalytic Performance

Along with the popularity of environmental protection concepts, the environmental treatment of water pollution attracts widespread attention, among which, the research on Bi-based semiconductor photocatalytic degradation technology has made great progress. However, the development of such bismuth-based composites still remains a challenging task due to difficult recovery and low catalytic efficiency. Herein, a novel CC/BiPO4/Bi2WO6 composite was successfully synthesized through two-step hydrothermal method using activated flexible carbon cloth as a substrate. The results of the photocatalytic degradation experiments showed that the obtained CC/BiPO4/Bi2WO6 composites can degrade 92.1% RhB in 60 min under UV-visible light irradiation, which was much higher than that of unloaded BiPO4 (24.4%) and BiPO4/Bi2WO6 (52.9%), exhibiting a better adsorption-photocatalytic degradation performance than BiPO4 and BiPO4/Bi2WO6. Photoluminescence spectra indicated that the improved photocatalytic activity was due to the more effective inhibition of photogenerated carrier complexation. Furthermore, the radical capture experiments confirmed that h+, ·OH and O2- were the main active substances in the photocatalytic degradation process of RhB by the CC/BiPO4/Bi2WO6 composites. More importantly, the prepared CC/BiPO4/Bi2WO6 composite had a simple separation process and good recycling stability, and its photocatalytic degradation efficiency can still reach 53.3% after six cycles of RhB degradation.