Bismuth oxyfluoride/bismuth oxyiodide nanocomposites enhance visible-light-driven photocatalytic activity

Chiing-Chang Chen; Jing-Ya Fu; Jia-Lin Chang; Shiuh-Tsuen Huang; Tsung-Wen Yeh; Jiun-Ting Hung; Peng-Hao Huang; Fu-Yu Liu; Li-Wen Chen

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2018.07.130

Bismuth oxyfluoride/bismuth oxyiodide nanocomposites enhance visible-light-driven photocatalytic activity

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2018 Dec 15:532:375-386. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2018.07.130. Epub 2018 Aug 3.

Authors

Chiing-Chang Chen¹, Jing-Ya Fu², Jia-Lin Chang², Shiuh-Tsuen Huang², Tsung-Wen Yeh², Jiun-Ting Hung², Peng-Hao Huang², Fu-Yu Liu², Li-Wen Chen³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Science Education and Application, National Taichung University of Education, Taichung 403, Taiwan. Electronic address: ccchen@mail.ntcu.edu.tw.
² Department of Science Education and Application, National Taichung University of Education, Taichung 403, Taiwan.
³ Department of Science Education and Application, National Taichung University of Education, Taichung 403, Taiwan. Electronic address: liwenchen@mail.ntcu.edu.tw.

PMID: 30096531
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2018.07.130

Abstract

This is the first paper to report a series of bismuth oxyfluoride/bismuth oxyiodide (BiO_pF_q/BiO_xI_y) nanocomposites with different F/I molar ratios, pH values, and reaction temperatures that were synthesized through a template-free and controlled hydrothermal method. These nanocomposites were characterized through scanning electron microscope energy dispersive microscopy (SEM-EDS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), and diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS). Under visible-light irradiation, the BiO_pF_q/BiO_xI_y composites exhibited excellent photocatalytic activities in the degradation of crystal violet (CV) and 2-hydroxybenzoic acid (HBA). The order of rate constants was BiOF/BiOI > BiOI ≫ BiOF. The photocatalytic activity of BiOF/BiOI composites reached a maximum rate constant of 0.2305 h^-1, 1.2 times higher than that of BiOI and 100 times higher than that of BiOF. Thus, the derived BiOF/BiOI is crucial for photocatalytic activity enhancement. After the removal of CV in the third cycle, no apparent deficits in photocatalytic activity were observed, and the observed deficit was 8.2% during the fifth run. Overall, the catalytic activity and stability observed for the proposed composites were determined to be adequate under visible-light irradiation. For various scavengers, the noted quenching effects demonstrated that reactive O₂^- has a notable role in the degradation of the applied CV.

Keywords: 2-Hydroxybenzoic acid; BiOF; BiOI; Crystal violet; Nanocomposites; Photocatalytic.