A Review: Preparation of Bismuth Ferrite Nanoparticles and Its Applications in Visible-light Induced Photocatalyses

Photocatalyses such as hydrogen generation from water splitting or degrading organic contaminant on photocatalysts under solar light is promising in solving current energy and environmental issues. Bismuth ferrite (BiFeO 3 ) is a newly emerging photocatalytic material in parallel with the widely used TiO 2 -based materials, and the narrow band gap (2.1-2.7 eV) of BiFeO 3 -based materials (BFO) makes the visible-light photocatalysis such as hydrogen generation by water splitting become possible. In this review, BFO with different particle sizes and morphologies prepared by various preparation methods such as sol-gel, hydrothermal and microwave hydrothermal was summarized and the effects of particle size and/or morphology on the photocatalytic activity were discussed. The effects of the addition of dopants and formation of hetero-junction on the BFO photocatalytic activity were also evaluated. The examples of H 2 production and degradation of organic pollutants by using BFO as the photocatalysts were given in the end and the future work about the photocatalyses of BFO material is also suggested.