Boron-doped bismuth oxybromide microspheres with enhanced surface hydroxyl groups: Synthesis, characterization and dramatic photocatalytic activity

ZhangSheng Liu; JinLong Liu; HaiYang Wang; Gang Cao; JiNan Niu

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2015.10.028

Boron-doped bismuth oxybromide microspheres with enhanced surface hydroxyl groups: Synthesis, characterization and dramatic photocatalytic activity

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2016 Feb 1:463:324-31. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2015.10.028. Epub 2015 Oct 22.

Authors

ZhangSheng Liu¹, JinLong Liu², HaiYang Wang², Gang Cao², JiNan Niu²

Affiliations

¹ School of Material Science and Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology, XuZhou 221116, China. Electronic address: lzsliu2008@hotmail.com.
² School of Material Science and Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology, XuZhou 221116, China.

PMID: 26590875
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2015.10.028

Abstract

B-doped BiOBr photocatalysts were successfully synthesized via a facile solvothermal method with boric acid used as boron source. As-obtained products consist of novel hierarchical microspheres, whose nanosheet building units were formed by nanoparticles splicing. They showed dramatic photocatalytic efficiency toward the degradation of Rhodamine B (RhB) and phenol under the visible-light irradiation and the highest activity was achieved by 0.075B-BiOBr. The enhanced photocatalytic activity could be attributed to the enriched surface hydroxyl groups on B-doped BiOBr samples, which not only improved the adsorption of pollutant on the photocatalyst but also promoted the separation of photogenerated electron-hole pairs. In addition, it was found that the main reactive species responsible for the degradation of organic pollutant were h(+) and O2(-) radicals, instead of OH radicals.

Keywords: BiOBr; Microstructure; Photocatalytic activity; Solvothermal.