Facile synthesis, structure and enhanced photocatalytic activity of novel BiOBr/Bi(C2O4)OH composite photocatalysts

ZhangSheng Liu; HaiYang Wang; GuoQing Pan; JiNan Niu; PeiZhong Feng

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2016.09.052

Facile synthesis, structure and enhanced photocatalytic activity of novel BiOBr/Bi(C₂O₄)OH composite photocatalysts

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2017 Jan 15:486:8-15. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2016.09.052. Epub 2016 Sep 28.

Authors

ZhangSheng Liu¹, HaiYang Wang², GuoQing Pan², JiNan Niu², PeiZhong Feng²

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: 27689721
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2016.09.052

Abstract

Novel composite photocatalysts BiOBr/Bi(C₂O₄)OH were successfully fabricated via a chemical etching method. After flower-like Bi(C₂O₄)OH microstructure assembled by nanorods was etched by KBr under an appropriate acidic condition, BiOBr nano-rods could be in-situ generated in nanorods, forming a heterostructure. The heterostructures exhibited a commendable photocatalytic performance toward the degradation of rhodamine B under the visible light irradiation. The effective separation and transfer of the photogenerated electrons and holes were believed to be the main factor for the enhanced activity, which resulted from the intrinsic characteristic of p-n junction. The responsible mechanism was detailedly discussed, and the photogenerated holes and O₂^- radicals were confirmed to be the main active species for the photodegradation of RhB.

Keywords: BiOBr/Bi(C(2)O(4))OH; Mechanism; Photocatalytic activity; p-n junction.