Abstract
Herein, we report the synthesis and characterization of Bi2WO6 spheres composed of fluffy thin nanosheets prepared by simple and facile hydrothermal process. The synthesized Bi2WO6 spheres were characterized in detail to examine the morphological, structural, optical and photocatalytic properties. The detailed morphological characterizations, done by scanning electron microscopy, revealed that the synthesized Bi2WO6 spheres are made by the accumulation of several Bi2WO6 thin nanosheets. The nanosheets are arranged in such a special manner that they made specific sphere-shaped morphologies. The detailed structural properties confirmed that the prepared Bi2WO6 spheres possess well-crystallinity and orthorhombic crystal structure. The detailed UV-DRS and room-temperature photoluminescence (PL) studies confirmed good optical properties for the synthesized Bi2WO6 spheres. Finally, the photocatalytic degradation of a fluoroquinolone antibiotic, ofloxacin, was studied under visible light irradiation in aqueous phase using Bi2WO6 spheres as catalyst. By detailed photocatalytic experiments, it was found that similar to 73% ofloxacin was degraded in 120 minutes in presence of Bi2WO6 spheres under visible light irradiation. Interestingly, the photocatalytic kinetic studies confirmed that the photocatalytic process followed the pseudo first order reaction kinetics with rate constant (k) of 0.00926 min(-1). The observed results demonstrate that Bi2WO6 nanomaterials are potential scaffold for the photocatalytic degradation of harmful antibiotics under visible-light irradiation.