Growth mechanism and photocatalytic properties of flower-like Bi2WO6 powders synthesized by a microwave hydrothermal method

Pure orthorhombic phase Bi₂WO₆ powders were synthesized by a microwave hydrothermal method in the absence of surfactants and templates, using Bi(NO₃)₃·5H₂O and Na₂WO₄·2H₂O as raw materials. Photocatalytic properties of the samples prepared at different reaction temperatures were also studied with Rhodamine B (RhB) solution as the target catabolite under visible light. The results indicate that flower-like Bi₂WO₆ powders can be obtained by controlling the microwave reaction temperatures in the absence of any additives. The growth of flower-like Bi₂WO₆ powders is a multistage layer assembly process, in which the flower-like Bi₂WO₆ self-assembling with the uniform size about 2 μm is synthesized at 180 °C. At the same time, the photocatalytic reaction rate constant (k) gets up to 0.04167/min and the degradation rate of RhB solution is more than 96 % after being irradiated under visible light for 70 min.