Improving Photocatalytic, Antimicrobial Properties, and Enzymatic Activity via Ag Doping in BiVO₄ Photocatalysts Using a Simple Co-precipitation Technique and Verified by Theoretical Analysis

In this work, using a simple and facile synthesis method, a co-precipitation method, an Ag-doped BiVO₄ visible-light photocatalyst was produced and then photocatalytic activity was performed to enhance the degradation of methylene red dye. The synthesized nanoparticles of Ag-doped BiVO₄ are characterized by XRD, SEM, EDX, FTIR, PL, and UV–Visible to analyze structural, morphological, and spectral properties. By employing the Debye Scherrer formulation, the average crystallite size of the synthesized NPs was calculated as 52 nm. The synthetic samples are irregular and roughly cubic. SEM images of the Ag-doped BiVO₄ show the morphological analysis of prepared NPs. Ag plays an essential quantity in reducing the amount at which photogenerated electron/hole pairs recombine, foremost to band gap decrement of up to 2.02 for indirect transitions, because of its compatible ionic radius with BiVO₄. Although NPs are smaller in size, they have a higher surface-to-volume ratio, which familiarizes more energetic adsorption sites and increases the catalyst’s photocatalytic activity. Interestingly, the degradation efficiency of 90.8% in 125 min in a 4% Ag-doped BiVO₄ catalyst, shows the most effective results. Experiments on recycling and trapping have been accomplished to verify the stability of the improved catalyst. A 4% Ag-doped BiVO₄ catalyst’s excellent photocatalytic activity indicates the wastewater treatment applications for which it may be applied. Antimicrobial activity of pure BiVO₄ and Ag-doped BiVO₄ showed the efficient findings and observed as efficient photocatalyst for antimicrobial properties also.