Facial construction of Pd/BiPO4 toward efficient photocatalytic oxidation of formaldehyde under UV light irradiation.

[Display omitted] • A promotion of Palladium on BiPO 4 was fabricated for HCHO degradation. • The possible catalytic mechanism of the HCHO degradation was proposed. • Explanation of mechanism by DFT theory. • It exhibits the highest HCHO degradation rate (81%). In this paper, the facile hydrothermal technique was used to create a high-performance serial of Pd/BiPO 4 photocatalysts, which were then used to degrade gaseous formaldehyde into CO 2 and H 2 O in a photoreactor chamber without secondary contaminations under UV radiation. X-ray diffraction (XRD), Ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy, Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), field-emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) and photoluminescence spectra (PL) were used to characterize all the as-prepared Pd/BiPO 4 samples. The photocatalytic performances of the as-prepared Pd/BiPO 4 for the degradation of gaseous formaldehyde were investigated under UV irradiation. The experimental results manifested that Pd/BiPO 4 exhibited higher photocatalytic activities, as compared to the pure BiPO 4. Especially, 1% Pd/BiPO 4 presented the highest photocatalytic performance for the degradation of formaldehyde, which improved the degradation efficiency up to 81% after 240 min under UV irradiation. Moreover, based on experimental results a possible photocatalytic mechanism was proposed. The predicted reaction mechanism was also verified with the density functional theory (DFT) calculations with very similar results. As a result, this work provides a useful model for designing efficient photocatalysts for the elimination of air pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]