Photocatalytic Water Splitting and Photocatalytic Degradation in Aqueous GdVO4 Suspensions under Simulated Solar Irradiation

GdVO4 was synthesized by solid state reaction at high temperature and characterized by XRD, UVvisible DRS, BET and SEM. XRD analysis of GdVO4 showed its structure was of tetragonal type. When GdVO4 was loaded with 0.3 wt% Pt, it showed the better photocatalytic activity for water splitting under simulated solar irradiation, and the amounts of the produced hydrogen in pure water were about 9.33 μmol under the irradiation of simulated solar for 6 h. Furthermore, photodegradation of Rhodamine B (Rh B ) on the samples were investigated under simulated solar irradiation.