Background: The main goal of this work is to demonstrate the improvement of visible light absorption for water pollution applications while simultaneously ensuring efficient disintegration of the industrial crystal violet dye (CV) through photocatalytic degradation. This strategy aims to minimize the impact on the local ecosystem.
Methods: This study utilized a simple solvent-free and novel solid-state mixing technique to synthesize α-Bi2O3 with surfactant-containing urea (U) and citric acid (CA) at 600 ◦C. The physicochemical properties were utilized to investigate morphological, structural, textural properties, optical, and photostability, the long lifespan of photogenerated charge carriers of hole-electron pairs, and the visible light energy that caused them to disintegrate.
Findings: Significantly, the surfactant based on urea was successful in maturing a nanoflower-like α-Bi2O3 (U) with extremely high stability and a versatile application of photocatalysis crystal violet degradation at 83.9% within 60 min. The α-Bi2O3 (U) shows good long-term stability with a 94.8(%) relative standard deviation after the fifth cycle, and the mechanistic analyses were evaluated by trapping experiments. Furthermore, this work provides a strategy to design low-cost and high-efficiency novel methods for sustainable photocatalysts and further investigates environmental applications.