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Morphology-controllable synthesis of novel

Bi25VO40 microcubes: optical properties and
Cite this: RSC Adv., 2015, 5, 78457
catalytic activities for the reduction of aromatic
nitro compounds
Lei Zhang,ab Jin-Song Hu,a Cheng-Ling Pan,*ab Xin-Hua Huang*a
and Chang-Min Houb

Received 10th August 2015
Accepted 8th September 2015
DOI: 10.1039/c5ra16101k
www.rsc.org/advances
In the present paper, novel Bi25VO40 microcubes with relatively good dispersion have been fabricated via a
facile, fast and mild hydrothermal synthesis strategy. The morphology and compositional characteristics of
the Bi25VO40 sample were characterized by various testing techniques including powder X-ray diffraction
(XRD), inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES), FT-IR spectroscopy, energy
dispersive spectrometry (EDS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), high resolution transmission
electron microscopy (HRTEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Several experimental parameters
including synthesis temperature, time and the amount of additives (e.g., polyacrylamide, sodium citrate
and sodium hydroxide) were discovered to play vital roles in the construction of these Bi25VO40
microcrystals. From the UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectrum (DRS) of the Bi25VO40 its band gap was
calculated to be 2.42 eV. The photoluminescence (PL) spectrum showed that Bi25VO40 microcubes had
two obvious emission peaks centered at 458 and 639 nm. Moreover, catalytic experiments showed that
the as-prepared Bi25VO40 microcubes possessed superior catalytic performance for the conversion of
4-nitrophenol (4-NP) and 4-nitroaniline (4-NA) in the presence of excess NaBH4 solution.

Bismuth vanadates are an important class of Bi-based

1. Introduction
During the past decade, the controllable preparation of nano- or
micro-scale metal oxides with uniform dimensions and shapes
has attracted considerable interest, because the physical and
chemical properties of materials depend highly on their sizes
and shapes.1–10 Therefore, morphology-controllable synthesis of
novel and well-dened metal oxide micro/nanostructures has
been one of the hot areas in the eld of chemistry and material
research.11–15 Recently, studies further demonstrate that ternary
oxides usually possess better performances than binary coun-
terparts in many cases such as optical, electronic, magnetic,
mechanical, and piezoelectricity properties due to their stoi-
chiometric diversity and structural richness.16–20 However,
phase and morphology control of these complex metal oxides
with a desired chemical composition is still a big challenge up
to now because of their various stoichiometries (e.g., typical
chemical formulas of ABO4, A4B2O11, A25BO40, A46B8O89 and so
on) and the associated complex structures.21–27
a
Laboratory of Multiscale Materials and Molecular Catalysis, School of Materials
Science and Engineering, Anhui University of Science and Technology, Huainan,
Anhui 232001, P. R. China. E-mail: clpan@aust.edu.cn; hxh0317@hotmail.com
b
State Key Lab of Inorganic Synthesis & Preparative Chemistry, College of Chemistry,
Jilin University, Changchun 130012, P. R. China
ternary metal oxides. Usually, there are many phases existed
in the well-known Bi–V–O family including BiVO4, Bi4V2O11,
B25VO40, Bi46V8O89 and so on.24–27 In addition, it has showed
that these kind complex metal oxides exhibit excellent oxide ion
conductivity, photocatalytic, dielectric, ferroelectric and pyro-
electric properties.28–30 Therefore, controllable fabrication of
these functional micro/nanomaterials with various morphol-
ogies is very signicant from the perspective of the fundamental
research and technological application. Actually, subsequent
studies have proved this point. For example, Xing's research
team prepared hierarchically structural BiVO4 photocatalysts
with special morphologies through a facile one-pot method in
the presence of soluble starch.31 Kuang and coworkers synthe-
sized a new polymorph of bismuth vanadate Bi46V8O89 with
excellent ionic conductivity by a high temperature solid state
reaction.25 Chen et al. reported the successful preparation of
hierarchical Bi4V2O11 hollow microspheres with excellent
visible activities by a facile template-free solvothermal route.32
Besides the above three materials, other bismuth vanadates
with different atomic ratio of Bi : V : O such as Bi25VO40, has
been discovered years ago. Researches show that Bi25VO40
belongs to the sillenite group with a pseudo-body centered
cubic unit cell and the noncentrosymmetric space group I23
and it usually exhibits unique photorefractive, photochromic,

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electrooptic and dielectric properties.33–38 Therefore, realization
of the morphology-controllable synthesis of Bi25VO40 micro/
nanomaterials not only expects to obtain some novel nano-
structures and enriches the preparation technology of nano-
materials, but also has great signicance for the performance
modulation and optimization of Bi25VO40 materials. Unfortu-
nately, to the best of our knowledge, report about the fabrica-
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tion of Bi25VO40 micro/nanostructures still remains rare,
especially for Bi25VO40 microcubes.
Hence, we provide a facile hydrothermal method to the
synthesis of novel Bi25VO40 microcubes. Some experimental
parameters affecting the phase and morphology of the nal
sample are studied in detail. In addition, the optical and cata-
lytic performances of Bi25VO40 sample are investigated. Several
distinguishing features are presented below: (1) novel Bi25VO40
microcubes are obtained; (2) the preparation strategy is rela-
tively facile, mild and fast; (3) no post-treatment is required; (4)
the Bi25VO40 sample possesses superior catalytic reactivity
towards the reduction of 4-nitrophenol and 4-nitroaniline in
excess NaBH4 aqueous system.
2. Materials and methods
For the preparation of Bi25VO40 microcubes, Bi(NO3)3$5H2O,
NH4VO3, Na3C6H5O7$2H2O, NaOH and polyacrylamide (PAM,
molecular weight ¼ 3 million) were employed as Bi source, V
source, coordination agent, mineralizer and surfactant,
respectively. In a typical synthesis process, 0.0012 mol of
Bi(NO3)3$5H2O was added into 15 mL of deionized water fol-
lowed by addition of 0.0024 mol of Na3C6H5O7$2H2O. Then,
15 mL of aqueous solution containing NH4VO3 (0.0001 mol),
NaOH (0.3 g) and polyacrylamide (0.3 g) was slowly dropped into
this reaction system under vigorous stir for 40 min. Finally, the
as-obtained suspension was poured into a Teon-lined
oxidation-resisting steel autoclave, and kept at 150  C for 2 h,
then cooling to atmospheric temperature naturally. The
precipitant was recovered by centrifugation, followed by
washing several times to remove excess surfactants and residual
ions, and drying at 80  C for 8 h.
XRD measurement was recorded on a Shimadzu XRD-6000
powder X-ray diffractometer in the 2q range from 10 to 70 ,
Fig. 1 XRD pattern (a) and FT-IR spectrum (b) of the as-obtained Bi25VO40 microcubes prepared at 150  C for 2 h.
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with Cu Ka radiation (l ¼ 1.5418  A). SEM image of the sample
was obtained using a eld emission scanning electron micro-
ananlyser (S-4800 from Hitachi Corp.), operated at an acceler-
ation voltage of 5 kV. EDS, being attached to the SEM, was
employed to measure the composition of the product. HRTEM
was carried out on a JEM-2100 high resolution transmission
microscope, employing an accelerating voltage of 200 kV. XPS
data was collected on a thermo ESCALAB 250XI X-ray photo-
electron spectrometer. FT-IR spectrum was obtained for
KBr-diluted sample on a Nicolet Magna 750 IR spectrometer in
the range of 400–1000 cm1. The UV-vis DRS of the product was
collected with a UV-vis spectrophotometer (UV-4100 from
Hitachi Corp.). PL spectrum was recorded on an Edinburgh
FLSP 920 uorescence spectrophotometer at room temperature.
The Bi/V atomic proportion of the sample was determined by
ICP-AES (Prole Spec from Leeman Corp.).
To assess the catalytic ability of Bi25VO40 microcubes for the
transformation of 4-NP to 4-aminophenol (4-AP), some solu-
tions that were utilized in the reaction need to be prepared
freshly. The catalytic experiments were actualized as follows:
1.0  104 mol L1 of 4-NP and appropriate amount of Bi25VO40
catalysts were rst mixed; a certain volume of NaBH4 solution
was then added into the above reaction system to give total 4 mL
of the solution. The reduction process was monitored by UV-vis
spectrophotometer (UV-9000S, metash, China). For the reduc-
tion reaction of 4-NA, 1.0  104 mol L1 of 4-NP was replaced
by 2.0  104 mol L1 of 4-NA, while keeping other experi-
mental conditions constant.
3. Results and discussion
The phase and purity of the Bi25VO40 microcubes was rst
checked by XRD analysis. Fig. 1a shows the experimental XRD
pattern of the sample synthesized at 150  C for 2 h. Every
diffraction peak can be readily assigned to the standard
Bi25VO40 material with a cubic phase, which is in accordance
with the reported data (JCPDS le Card no. 46-0419). The
intensity and shape of the peaks reveal that the Bi25VO40 sample
is well crystallized. No other diffraction peaks for impurity
phases is found from the XRD pattern. The vibration spectrum
of Bi25VO40 sample was further analyzed through FT-IR
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Fig. 2 XPS spectra of the as-obtained Bi25VO40 microcubes prepared at 150  C for 2 h.
spectrum (Fig. 1b). The two peaks at 475 and 763 cm1 are
contributed by the bending and stretching vibration of VO43,
respectively.39,40 The peak centered at 525 cm1 corresponds to
Fig. 3 SEM (a and b) and EDS mapping (c–f) of the Bi25VO40 prepared
at 150  C for 2 h.
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the stretching vibration of Bi–O–V, and a weak peak at 600 cm1
is attributed to the vibration of Bi–O bond.41 Therefore, it is
reasonable to believe that the pure Bi25VO40 product has been
successfully prepared via the hydrothermal synthesis strategy.
More detailed surface compositions and chemical states of
the elements in Bi25VO40 sample were revealed by XPS (Fig. 2).
Besides the Bi, V and O signals deriving from Bi25VO40 sample,
the C 1s peak centered at 284.8 eV, which is considered to be
added in the sample preparation process, can also be found and
employed as a binding energy reference, as shown in Fig. 2a.
The narrow spectrum of Bi 4f is shown in Fig. 2b, which
possesses two Bi 4f signals at about 158.8 eV (Bi 4f7/2) and
164.1 eV (Bi 4f5/2), indicating that Bi is in the Bi3+ oxidation
state.30 As for the V 2p shown in Fig. 2c, the peaks at 523.8 and
516.3 eV can be accordingly attributed to the V 2p1/2 and V 2p3/2,
which is the characteristic of the V species with a +5 valence in
Bi25VO40.42 In Fig. 2d, the O 1s peak can be separated into three
signals at 529.6, 531.0 and 532.6 eV, which should be ascribed
to the binding energies of O in the V–O bond, Bi–O bond and
hydroxyl (or crystal water) adsorbed on the surface, respec-
tively.43 Moreover, ICP-AES technology was employed to analyze
the atomic proportion of Bi/V in the nal sample. Experiment
indicates that this value is about 24.9 : 1, which is highly
consistent with the stoichiometric ratio of Bi25VO40, indicating
that the nal sample is comprised of pure Bi25VO40 sample.
The morphology and size of the Bi25VO40 sample was
investigated by SEM. As displayed in Fig. 3a, it is easily found
that the nal product is comprised of many Bi25VO40 micro-
cubes with uniform size and shape. High magnication SEM
image displayed in Fig. 3b indicates that the whole microcubes
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Fig. 4 SEM, TEM images and the size distribution histogram of the samples prepared at different reaction temperature: (a–d) 120 and (e) 180  C.
have smooth faces and the edge-length is around 1–2 mm. EDS
elemental mapping of Bi25VO40 sample also describes the space
distribution of Bi, V and O in an individual microcube
(Fig. 3c–f), which shows that three elements are evenly distrib-
uted in the cube-like structure.
The morphology of the sample was revealed to be seriously
inuenced by the synthesis temperature. If the synthesis
temperature was set at 120  C, keeping other experimental
conditions unchanged, micro-scale cubes were readily obtained
(Fig. 4a). However, high magnication SEM, TEM images and the
size distribution histogram of the sample displayed in Fig. 4b–d
shows that many polydisperse nanoparticles with wide size
distribution (32–42 nm) attach to the surface of cube-like micro-
structures. When the temperature was enhanced to 150 (Fig. 3) or
180  C (Fig. 4e), the nal product was comprised of uniform
microcubes. Furthermore, it should be noted that all the XRD
patterns of these three samples can be indexed to pure Bi25VO40
Fig. 5 XRD patterns of the samples prepared at different reaction
temperature.
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with cubic phase (Fig. 1 and 5). Therefore, it is reasonable to
believe that Bi25VO40 nanoparticles may rst form during the
synthesis process. At higher reaction temperature, such particle-
like precursors gradually dissolve and more Bi25VO40 micro-
cubes with larger size are obtained. Actually, this phenomenon
can be supported by well-known Ostwald ripening mechanism.44
It has demonstrated that the amount of sodium hydroxide in
the reaction system can signicantly inuences the shape and
phase of the sample. When the amount of sodium hydroxide
was controlled at 0.15 g, amorphous agglomerate particles were
produced (Fig. 6a and b and 7, down). While increasing the
amount of sodium hydroxide to 0.3 (Fig. 1 and 3) or 0.45 g
(Fig. 6c and 7, middle), monodisperse Bi25VO40 microcubes
were obtained. Further increasing the amount of sodium
hydroxide to 0.6 g, microrods and microcubes survived together
in the sample (Fig. 6d and e) and the corresponding XRD
Fig. 6SEM and TEM images of the samples with different amount of
sodium hydroxide: (a and b) 0.15, (c), 0.45 and (d and e) 0.6 g.
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Fig. 7 XRD patterns of the samples with different amount of sodium
hydroxide.
pattern displayed in Fig. 7 (upper) revealed that the sample was
comprised of two phase, which could be assigned to cubic
Bi25VO40 (no. 46-0419) and orthorhombic BiVO4 (no. 12-0293),
respectively. As a conventional mineral reagent, the presence of
appropriate amount of sodium hydroxide in the hydrothermal
or solvothermal process can remarkably speed up the reaction
rate, which is in favor of the nucleation and growth of target
product.45 In our experiment, the lower amount of sodium
hydroxide means the slower formation rate of Bi25VO40, which
may take responsibility for the appearance of amorphous
agglomerate particles. However, excess sodium hydroxide in the
reaction medium usually leads to the generation of some
impurities, which has been adequately demonstrated in the
preparation of other complex metal oxides nanomaterials such
Fig. 8 SEM images and XRD patterns of the samples with different amount of PAM: (a and b) 0 and (c and d) 0.6 g.
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as BiFeO3, Cd2Ge2O6, Bi4Ge3O12 and so on.46–48 Therefore, in
order to prepare pure Bi25VO40 sample, the optimal amount of
sodium hydroxide should be controlled at 0.3 g.
During the current hydrothermal process, we found that the
organic macromolecule PAM also has a crucial effect on the
morphology and dispersity of Bi25VO40 sample. In the absence
of PAM, the as-prepared sample was composed of agglomerate
cube-like Bi25VO40 microstructures (Fig. 8a and b), while other
conditions keeping the same with the typical synthesis. If the
amount of PAM was set at 0.3 (Fig. 1 and 3) or 0.6 g (Fig. 8c and
d), uniform Bi25VO40 microcubes were the exclusive product. On
one hand, the viscosity of the solution becomes greater due to
the presence of PAM, which can effectively slow down the
reaction rate. On the other hand, the amide groups of PAM
molecule can coordinate with metal ions to generate stable
coordination compound, and further adjust the reaction rate.
Therefore, it is reasonable to believe that the improvement of
agglomerating phenomenon can be attributed to the effective
control of reaction rate resulting from the above double effect of
PAM molecule.49
The amounts of sodium citrate can also sharply affect the
morphology and phase of the sample. Several controllable
experiments were carried out to check the effect of the sodium
citrate in the construction of Bi25VO40 microcubes. For example,
polydisperse Bi25VO40 microcubes and some irregular particles
were obtained in the absence of sodium citrate (Fig. 9a). The
corresponding XRD pattern displayed in Fig. 9b demonstrates
that the sample is composed of two phases with cubic Bi25VO40
(no. 46-0419) and Bi2O3 (no. 27-0052). Raising the amount of
sodium citrate to 0.0024 mol, monodisperse Bi25VO40 micro-
cubes were obtained (Fig. 1 and 3). While the amount of sodium
citrate was set at 0.0042 mol, the morphology of the sample
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Fig. 9 SEM images and XRD patterns of the samples with different amount of Na3C6H5O7$2H2O: 0 (a and b) and 0.0042 mol (c and d).

hardly changed (Fig. 9c). However, the XRD pattern of this
sample reveals that the BiVO4 impurity also exists in the system
(Fig. 9d). As is well known, sodium citrate is a common coor-
dination agents, which can reacts with Bi3+ to form a stable
metal complex.50 Due to the coordination and dissolution
equilibrium, the appropriate amounts of sodium citrate may
sharply affect the concentration of free metal ions in the reac-
tion system and further adjust the reaction and diffusion rate of
the reagents, which may be responsible for the formation of
uniform Bi25VO40 microcubes.
It has been demonstrated that the morphology of the
obtained precursors can be easily adjusted by the reaction time.

Fig. 10 SEM images and XRD patterns of the samples obtained at 150  C with different reaction time: 1 (a and b) and 12 h (c and d).

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Fig. 11 DRS spectrum (a) and the plots of (ahn)2 vs. photo energy for the estimation of Eg of Bi25VO40 microcubes prepared at 150  C for 2 h (b).
Fig. 10 represents the SEM images and XRD patterns of the
samples synthesized at various reaction periods of 1, 2 and 12 h,
respectively. As displayed in Fig. 10a and b, one can nd that the
nal sample was composed of Bi25VO40 microcubes and nano-
particles when the reaction time was controlled at 1 h.
Extending the reaction time to 2 h, nanoparticles gradually
disappeared and more microcubes were obtained (Fig. 1 and 3).
If the synthesis time was set at 12 h, the shape and phase of the
sample remained unchanged (Fig. 10c and d). Therefore, the
possible formation mechanism of the Bi25VO40 microcubes may
be attributed to the distinguished Ostwald ripening process.44
The optical absorption of the as-obtained Bi25VO40 micro-
cubes was investigated. Fig. 11 depicts the typical UV-vis DRS of
the Bi25VO40 sample. For a crystalline semiconductor, the
optical absorption near the band edge follows the equation
ahn ¼ A(hn  Eg)n/2, where a, h, n, A and Eg are the absorption
coefficient, Planck constant, light frequency, a constant and
band gap, respectively. Also, n can be a value of 1 for the direct
band gap and 4 for the indirect band gap.35 Therefore, from the
long wavelength extrapolation of the band edge (Fig. 11b), the
band gap of the Bi25VO40 micorcubes can be calculated to be
2.42 eV.
Fig. 12 shows the excitation and emission spectra of the as-
obtained Bi25VO40 microcubes at 150  C for 2 h. In the
present work, Bi25VO40 sample exhibits double obvious
Fig. 12 Room temperature excitation (a) and emission spectra (b) of the as-prepared Bi25VO40 microcubes prepared at 150  C for 2 h (lex ¼
360 nm).
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emission peaks at 458 and 639 nm with excitation wavelength at
360 nm (Fig. 12b). Actually, the origins of the above two PL
emission peaks (458 and 639 nm) in Bi25VO40 sample have not
been established up to now. However, recent researches have
demonstrated that there are many oxygen vacancies existed in
such sillenite group complex oxides.33–35 Therefore, it is
reasonable to believe that the peak centered at 458 nm can be
ascribed to oxygen vacancies related defects emission, which
has been intensively studied in other metal oxides including
ZnO and SnO2.51,52 The emission peak centered at 632 nm may
be attributed to the presence of energy levels located in the
bandgap, known as deep donors, which is in good agreement
with the previous research report.53
In order to assess the catalytic activities of Bi25VO40 micro-
cubes, the reduction reaction of 4-NP to 4-AP in the presence of
overabounded NaBH4 was employed as the model experiment.
Generally, 4-NP exhibits a main peak (l ¼ 317 nm) and a weak
peak (l ¼ 400 nm) in the UV-vis absorption spectrum
(Fig. 13a).54 The absorption peak of 4-NP undergoes an imme-
diate red-shi from 317 to 400 nm upon the addition of NaBH4,
indicating the formation of 4-nitrophenolate ions.55 Researches
have demonstrated that such intermediate hardly changes a few
days later till catalysts are introduced.56 Thus, the changes in
absorbance at l ¼ 400 nm can be chosen as a index to report the
transformation from 4-NP to 4-AP. Fig. 13b–d depicts the UV-vis
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Fig. 13 (a) UV-vis absorption spectra of as-prepared Bi25VO40 microcubes, 4-nitrophenol, and 4-nitrophenol‒NaBH4 solution; (b–d) UV-vis
absorption spectra of the systems containing 4-nitrophenol and NaBH4 in the presence of different amount of Bi25VO40 catalyst; (e) the
conversion–time curves of 4-NP and (f) linear relationships between ln(C0/C) and the reaction time in the presence of different amount of
Bi25VO40 catalyst.

absorption spectra of the solution at various reaction periods in

different concentrations of catalyst (10, 15, and 20 mg L1
Bi25VO40 microcubes). Obviously, the absorbance at l ¼ 400 nm
gradually decreases with extending of the reaction time, and a
new peak at about l ¼ 300 nm emerges that indicates superior
catalytic activity of the Bi25VO40 microcubes for the conversion
from 4-NP to 4-AP. Fig. 13e displays the correlation between the
reaction rate and the concentration of the catalyst. The reaction
rate can be quickened with the raising of the concentration of
the catalyst from 10 to 15 to 20 mg L1. The concentration of
NaBH4 is higher than that of 4-NP, the catalytic reaction is in
more abidance by the pseudo-rst order reaction kinetics.
Therefore, such rate constant of the catalytic reactions is
obtained from the equation: ln(C0/C) ¼ kt, where the C0 and C
represent the concentrations of 4-NP solution at time 0 and t,
Fig. 14 The conversion–time curves of 4-NP over different catalysts. respectively, and k is on behalf of the rate constant.57 Fig. 13f is
the reaction kinetics of 4-NP solution based on the information

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Fig. 15 (a) UV-vis absorption spectra of the 4-NA and NaBH4 system in the presence of 10 mg L1 of Bi25VO40 catalyst for various reaction
duration; (b) linear relationships between ln(C0/C) and the reaction time with 10 mg L1 of Bi25VO40 catalyst.

recorded in Fig. 13e. The rate constants in different concen-
trations of Bi25VO40 catalysts are calculated to be 0.033
(10 mg L1 of Bi25VO40), 0.092 (15 mg L1 of Bi25VO40) and
0.136 min1 (20 mg L1 of Bi25VO40). Fig. 14 depicts the
conversion–time curves of 4-NP over different catalysts
(Bi25VO40 sample prepared in the absence of PAM, see Fig. 8a;
Bi25VO40 sample with 0.6 g of PAM, see Fig. 8c). It can be easily
found that the catalytic efficiencies in the presence of the above
two catalysts signicantly reduced. The serious agglomeration
phenomenon of the product may explain the lower catalytic
ability of the Bi25VO40 sample prepared without PAM molecules.
The high amount of PAM added in the synthesis process may
form a protective layer in the outer surface of Bi25VO40 micro-
cubes, which makes against the electron transfer, resulting in
the bad catalytic ability (Bi25VO40 sample with 0.6 g of PAM).58
Although the catalytic conversion process from 4-NP to 4-AP
over the Bi25VO40 catalyst is still unclear, it is reasonable to
believe that BH4 and 4-NP can be rstly adsorbed by the
Bi25VO40 catalyst. Then, the electron transfer from BH4 to 4-NP
can be mediated by the catalyst surface, leading to the
production of 4-AP.59 Further investigations reveal that the
Bi25VO40 microcubes also have promising catalysis in the
reduction of other aromatic nitro-compounds, such as 4-NA
under the same experimental conditions (Fig. 15), indicating
huge potential for the applications in industrial production.
Moreover, compared with some previous reports (see Table 1),
the present Bi25VO40 nanostructures also presented close or
better catalytic activity for the reduction of 4-NP. In particular,
against Ag and Au catalysts the present Bi25VO40 catalysts have
lower cost, which is very important in practical application.
4. Conclusions
We have designed and synthesized morphology-controllable
Bi25VO40 microcubes that have the edge-length of 1–2 mm
through a hydrothermal strategy. General experimental
parameters that probably affect the phase and shape of the
sample have been investigated in details. By modulation of
these experimental parameters, we are capable of creation of
the Bi25VO40 microcubes as wanted morphologies that would be
more promising for the application in catalysis reaction.
Prepared Bi25VO40 microcubes with well-dened structures
have the optical absorption and photoluminescence properties
that have been measured and analyzed deeply. Importantly, we
have demonstrated that the as-prepared Bi25VO40 is able to
exhibit superior catalytic activities for the reduction of 4-NP and
4-NA in excess NaBH4 aqueous system. In comparison to the
existing hydrothermal/solvothermal strategy for the formation
of similar microcubes, our strategy is more versatile and
promising in construction of Bi25VO40 nanoarchitecture, since
it is more facile, rapid and mild reaction system.

Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge nancial support from the National
Table 1 Comparison of the catalytic capacities of various catalysts
Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21501002, 21301005
reported in the literatures for the reduction of 4-NP to 4-AP by NaBH4
and 21201006) and the Natural Foundation of Anhui Province
Rate Reaction Amount of (No. 1308085QB34 and 1408085QB31).
constants time catalysts
Catalysts (min1) (min) (mg mL1) Reference
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