Significant Impact of Exposed Facets on the BiVO₄ Material Performance for Photocatalytic Water Splitting Reactions

Abstract

The impact of the four predominant (010), (110), (001), and (121) exposed facets obtained experimentally for monoclinic BiVO 4 on its photocatalytic performance for water splitting reactions is investigated on the basis of the hybrid density functional theory including the spin–orbit coupling. Although their electronic structure is similar, their transport and redox properties reveal anisotropic characters based on the crystal orientation and termination. The particular role of each facet in proton reduction was correlated with the surface Bi coordination number and their geometrical distribution. Our work predicts the (001) facet as the only good candidate for both HER and OER, while the (010) facet is a fitting candidate for OER only. The (110) and (121) surfaces are acceptable candidates only for OER but less potential than (001) and (010). These outcomes will efficiently conduct experimentalists for an attentive design of facet-oriented BiVO 4 samples toward improving water oxidation and proton reduction.

First-Principle Insight Into the Effects of Oxygen Vacancies on the Electronic, Photocatalytic, and Optical Properties of Monoclinic BiVO4(001)

“…Generally, among the low-Miller-index surfaces, the (001) crystal plane tends to be the preferred growth orientation (Han et al, 2018 ; Lardhi et al, 2020 ). Furthermore, because Xi and Ye ( 2010 ) demonstrated the monoclinic phase of BiVO 4 exists in the (001) crystal plane orientation, the (001) crystal plane was selected for theoretical simulations.…”

Supraparticles for Sustainability

“…Many materials are already known, that exhibit photocatalytic properties, i.e., ZnO, [ 156 ] NiO, [ 156 ] carbon‐based materials, [ 157 ] Fe 3 O 4 , [ 158 ] or Bi 2 MoO 6 , [ 159 ] and BiVO 4 . [ 160 ] A well‐established photocatalyst among these is titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ). [ 156,161,162,163 ] Due to its wide bandgap, it is well suited for the absorption of solar light.…”

Novel Structures and Applications of Graphene-Based Semiconductor Photocatalysts: Faceted Particles, Photonic Crystals, Antimicrobial and Magnetic Properties

“…To date, many research papers on this topic have been published. Most of them concern faceted TiO 2 [21][22][23][24][25][26], but the scientific reports about other types of photocatalysts with faceted morphology, such as Cu 2 O [27,28], BiVO 4 [29,30], ZnO [31], AgNbO 3 [32], Ag 2 MoO 4 [33] and BiOCl [34,35], are also available in the literature. For example, the morphology of anatase titania can be recognized as decahedron, octahedron, rod, belt and sheet structures.…”

“…Various nanostructures of graphene-based PCs have been designed and fabricated, including one-dimensional (1D), e.g., graphene nanolayers stacked and embedded between dielectric materials [57], two-dimensional (2D), e.g., nanocavities [58], periodic cylindrical holes in multilayered graphene [30], and three-dimensional (3D), e.g., inverse opal PCs (IO-PCs). According to various theoretical models that have been reported, PBG positions could be varied according to the thickness of dielectric layer [59] and by altering the chemical potential of graphene [9,30] for both 1D and 2D graphene-based PCs.…”