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The novel semiconductor photocatalytic material bismuth vanadate (BiVO4) is gaining significant attention in research due to its unique characteristics, which include a low band gap, good responsiveness to visible light, and non-toxic nature. However, intrinsic constraints such as poor photogenerated charge transfer, slow water oxidation kinetics, and fast electron–hole pair recombination limit the photocatalytic activity of BiVO4. Building heterojunctions has shown to be an effective strategy for enhancing charge separation and impeding electron–hole pair recombination over the last few decades. This review covers the state-of-the-art developments in heterojunction nanomaterials based on BiVO4 for photocatalysis. It explores heterojunction design, clarifies reaction mechanisms, and highlights the current developments in applications including photocatalytic water splitting and organic matter degradation. Finally, it offers a preview of the development paths and opportunities for BiVO4-based heterojunction nanomaterials in the future. This comprehensive assessment of BiVO4-based heterojunctions provides insightful knowledge to researchers in materials science, chemistry, and environmental engineering that will drive advances and breakthroughs in these important fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the recent years, the detection and determination of level of pollutant in environment have become indispensable. This allows for the adoption of various methods to evade the pollution caused by these toxicant entities. This has enhanced the interest of researchers to develop sustainable sensors to determine the trace level concentration of harmful target species. Although the list of these pollutants is undoubtedly too long, toxic metal ions, like Pb2+ ions beyond certain limit, can severely endanger the whole ecosystem. Therefore, the present study is dedicated toward the development of Pb2+ ion-selective electrode based on the membrane of zinc oxide/polyaniline nanocomposites. Nanocomposite assembly was synthesized using in-situ chemical oxidative polymerization method and characterized using spectroscopic techniques, such as energy‐dispersive spectroscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, dynamic light scattering, etc. The proposed potentiometric sensor exhibits excellent selectivity toward Pb2+ ions with detection limit of 2.239 × 10−6 M, Nernstian slope of 23.31 ± 2.5 mV decade−1 and a wide linear concentration range of 1.0 × 10−5 M to 1.0 × 10−1 M. Moreover, the designed Pb2+ ion-selective electrode was successfully examined for its practical applicability in Pb2+−EDTA complexometric titration as well as potentiometric determination of concentration of Pb2+ ions in real-life samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Silver is a metal which is often attracted by people due to its ornamental uses. Besides this property of silver, it has wide use in our daily life. Because of [...], New poly(vinylchloride) (PVC) based liquid membrane sensors are reported containing neutral macrocyclic carrier as potential ionophores for sensing silver ions. Three macrocycles ([L.sub.1], [L.sub.2] and [L.sub.3]) possessing two thioether, two amide and one secondary amine unit have been used in new PVC membrane-based sensor. At wide pH range of 4.5 to 8.0, these sensors exhibit linear responses in the concentration range of 1 x [10.sup.-4] to 0.1 M and detection limit 6 x [10.sup.-5] M for [L.sub.1] and 1 x [10.sup.-4] M for [L.sub.2] and [L.sub.3] respectively with pseudo-Nernstian slopes between 43-46 mV/decade for all the three sensors. These sensors have short response time ( Keywords: thioether-amide ionophore, silver ions, liquid membrane electrode, selectivity, potentiometric titrations