Surfactant-free hydrothermal synthesis of flower-like Bi ₂ WO ₆ with enhanced solar-light-induced photocatalytic performance

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Bi2WO6 with a flower-like structure was successfully synthesised by a simple surfactant-free hydrothermal method. The flower-like structures were composed of many interweaved nanosheets to form an open porous structure. The BET results showed that flower-like Bi2WO6 had a large surface area with 17.8 m2/g, which was 28 times higher than the Bi2WO6 prepared by a solid state reaction (SSR-Bi2WO6). A possible formation mechanism of the flower-like Bi2WO6 is proposed. Owing to the higher surface area, porous structure and high surface-to-volume ratios, the flower-like Bi2WO6 exhibited better photocatalytic activity than the SSR-Bi2WO6 for the degradation of Rhodamine B.