Design of Bifunctional Ag2co3 Decorated  Bivo4 Nanoflowers for High-Performance Electrochemical Energy Storage and Photocatalytic Activity

Abstract

In this study, we reported the fabrication of Ag2CO3 decorated BiVO4 nanoflower like composite heterostructure by deposition-precipitation method for high performance energy storage and photodegradation of tetracycline. The synthesized nanostructure was structurally and electrochemically characterized, which demonstrate the successful synthesis of heterostructure. Whileas, microscopic studies established uniformity with Ag2CO3 nanorods dispersed over the flower like BiVO4 nanostructures. Electrochemical studies established good redox behavior with active surface and good charge storage capacities. Moreover, heterostructure shows good electrochemical response in cyclic voltammetry (CV) with a specific capacitance of 998 F g-1 at a sweep potential of 10 mVs-1. Galvanostatic charge discharge (GCD) curves demonstrated ideal like behavior (1004 F g-1 at 0.5 Ag-1) with lower charging time and higher discharging time. The hybrid nanostructure delivers a high energy density of 89.9 Wh kg-1 and a power density of 634 W h kg-1. Furthermore, heterostructure shows admirable photocatalytic performance with 94% degradation of tetracycline in 80 minutes under visible light. In addition, the heterostructure shows good cyclic stability with a capacitance retention of 95.2 % after 5000 cycles and a photocatalytic degradation of 87% after four consecutive cycles. Notably, the enhanced performance of heterostructure is attributed to high surface area, rapid charge transfer and good light absorption properties.

Keywords: BiVO4/Ag2CO3 heterostructure, Energy storage, photocatalysis, Cyclic Voltammetry, nanoflower