Basic bismuth (III) nitrate (BBN)/BiVO4 composites were prepared by a coprecipitation method. A variety of techniques including X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), N-2 adsorption, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were employed to characterize the resulting materials. The composite shows higher photocatalytic activity than BiVO4 over degradation of organic pollutants (RhB, MO, phenol, and 2-propanol). A mechanism was proposed for the enhanced photocatalytic activity. The proposed mechanism was confirmed by experiments with hydroxyl radicals. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.