Calcination-Induced Oxygen Vacancies Enhancing the Photocatalytic Performance of a Recycled Bi2O3/BiOCl Heterojunction Nanosheet

Peng Li; Jie Qu; Jing Wu; Jie Zhang; Guoli Zhou; Ying Zhang; Yijun Cao; Daoguang Teng

doi:10.1021/acsomega.2c04496

Calcination-Induced Oxygen Vacancies Enhancing the Photocatalytic Performance of a Recycled Bi₂O₃/BiOCl Heterojunction Nanosheet

ACS Omega. 2022 Dec 7;7(50):46250-46259. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.2c04496. eCollection 2022 Dec 20.

Authors

Peng Li¹, Jie Qu¹, Jing Wu², Jie Zhang³, Guoli Zhou¹, Ying Zhang^{1

4}, Yijun Cao^{1

4}, Daoguang Teng^{1

4}

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemical Engineering, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou450001, Henan, China.
² Huaibei Blasting Technology Research Institute Co., Ltd., Huaibei235000, Anhui, China.
³ School of Ecology and Environment, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou450001, Henan, China.
⁴ Zhongyuan Critical Metals Laboratory, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou450001, Henan, China.

Abstract

With the rapid development of industry, bismuth-based semiconductors have been widely used for the photocatalytic degradation of organic contaminants discharged into wastewater. Herein, a Bi₂O₃/BiOCl (BBOC) heterojunction was constructed with high photocatalytic activity toward Rhodamine B (RhB) in the first cycle of the photocatalysis test, while the photocatalytic performance was drastically reduced after repeated testing. The adsorbed RhB molecules occupying the facial active sites of BBOC contributed to the decline of photocatalytic activity. The spent BBOC can be reactivated by the decomposition of the adsorbed RhB and the introduction of oxygen vacancies during calcination under an air atmosphere. The BBOC thus recovered exhibited a superior apparent rate constant of 0.08087 min^-1 compared with 0.05228 min^-1 of pristine BBOC. This study provided an effective strategy to investigate the deactivation/activation mechanism of bismuth-based heterojunction photocatalysts.