Photocatalytic mechanism of tourmaline/BiVO4 composites with different ratios

The effect of the proportion tourmaline (0%, 1%, 3%, 5%, 7%, 9%) on the photocatalytic properties of BiVO4 was studied. The results were characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, PL spectroscopy and UV-vis DRS. The first-order kinetic model was employed to fit the experiment. The results showed that the addition 3% tourmaline improved the degradation rate of methylene blue by BiVO4 from 47.7% to 82.1%. The addition of tourmaline can reduce the electrons and holes recombination rate of BiVO4 to a certain extent, and greatly reduced the forbidden band width. resulting in more conducive to the photocatalytic reaction, thereby improving its photocatalytic efficiency.