Assembly of Br-doped graphitic-C3N4 decorated with AgVO3 nanoribbons as efficient Z-type photocatalyst heterojunctions for decontamination of bisphenol A (BPA)

• Novel AgVO 3 /Br-doped g-C 3 N 4 (AVO/BrCN) heterojunctions have been developed. • AVO/BrCN photocatalyst showed 98.5 % photodestruction towards BPA . • AVO/BrCN heterojunctions provide fast transfer rate of photocreated charges. • Z-scheme pathway has been adopted as a recommended mechanism. The removal of bisphenol A (BPA) as a toxic environmental contaminant has attracted increasing attention. In this regard, the environmentally friendly photodegradation process based on photocatalytic heterojunctions is vastly used to eliminate this pollutant. In this work, we syntheized AgVO 3 -decorated Br-doped g-C 3 N 4 (AVO/BrCN) hybrids in different AVO contents (10–40 wt%) to acquire effective Z-type heterojunctions for visible-light photocatalytic degradation of BPA, and thus magnificently reduces the photo charges recombination. Obviously, AVO/BrCN hybrids showed boosted photodegradation efficiency under visible light, in which 98.5 % of BPA has been decomposed over 20 wt%-AVO/BrCN heterojunction sample compared with 60 % and 56 % over pure AVO and BrCN, respectively within the same period (90 min). The boosted photoactivity of AVO/BrCN heterojunction was due to the enlarged visible-light harvesting of BrCN and the high separation of photoinduced-charge carriers in the Z-type heterojunctions between AVO and BrCN. The BPA photodegradation mechanism over AVO/BrCN heterojunctions was illuminated after conducting trapping experiments, in which • O 2 − and • OH species were the dominated in the process. Moreover, the 91.4 % BPA photodegradation was still acquired after the fifth round of treatment, indicating excellent photodurability of AVO/BrCN heterojunction.