Enhanced Photocatalytic Activity of the Carbon Quantum Dot-Modified BiOI Microsphere

Yuan Chen; Qiuju Lu; Xuelian Yan; Qionghua Mo; Yun Chen; Bitao Liu; Liumei Teng; Wei Xiao; Liangsheng Ge; Qinyi Wang

doi:10.1186/s11671-016-1262-7

Enhanced Photocatalytic Activity of the Carbon Quantum Dot-Modified BiOI Microsphere

Nanoscale Res Lett. 2016 Dec;11(1):60. doi: 10.1186/s11671-016-1262-7. Epub 2016 Feb 3.

Authors

Yuan Chen^{1

2}, Qiuju Lu¹, Xuelian Yan^{1

2}, Qionghua Mo^{1

3}, Yun Chen¹, Bitao Liu⁴, Liumei Teng¹, Wei Xiao⁵, Liangsheng Ge¹, Qinyi Wang⁶

Affiliations

¹ Research Institute for New Materials Technology, Chongqing University of Arts and Sciences, Yongchuan, Chongqing, 402160, China.
² School of Materials Science and Engineering, Chongqing University of Technology, Banan, Chongqing, 400054, China.
³ Faculty of Materials and Energy, Southwest University, Beibei, Chongqing, 400715, China.
⁴ Research Institute for New Materials Technology, Chongqing University of Arts and Sciences, Yongchuan, Chongqing, 402160, China. liubitao007@163.com.
⁵ Research Institute for New Materials Technology, Chongqing University of Arts and Sciences, Yongchuan, Chongqing, 402160, China. showame@aliyun.com.
⁶ Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, 65211-2200, USA.

Abstract

Novel carbon quantum dot (CQD)-modified BiOI photocatalysts were prepared via a facile hydrothermal process. The CQD-modified BiOI materials were characterized by multiple techniques. The CQD with an average size around several nanometers was distributed on the surface of BiOI microsphere. Its photocatalytic activity was investigated sufficiently by the photodegradation of methylene orange (MO). The results showed that the CQD/BiOI 1.5 wt.% sample exhibited the optimum photocatalytic activity, which was 2.5 times that of the pure BiOI. This improvement was attributed to the crucial role of CQDs, which could be acted as a photocenter for absorbing solar light, charge separation center for suppressing charge recombination.

Keywords: BiOI; CQDs; Photocatalytic; Visible light.