Versatile iodine-doped BiOCl with abundant oxygen vacancies and (110) crystal planes for enhanced pollutant photodegradation

Crystal plane regulation, defect engineering, and element doping can effectively solve the problems of large band gaps, poor light absorption, and fast recombination of BiOCl. In this work, iodine-doped BiOCl (I/BiOCl) nanowafers with abundant (110) crystal planes and oxygen vacancies (OV) were prepared by a simple hydro -thermal method and assessed for pollutant photodegradation. I/BiOCl with a molar ratio of I to Cl of 0.6 (I0.6/ BiOCl) degraded under visible light 95.8% of the toxic dye rhodamine B and 85.1% of the persistent antibiotic tetracycline in 5 and 10 min, respectively. In comparison, unmodified BiOCl photodegraded only between 42.0% and 48.2% of these critical water pollutants. Furthermore, I0.6/BiOCl was highly stable with most of its photo -catalytic activity remaining after 4 cycles. Three reasons explain the excellent photodegradation properties of I0.6/BiOCl. First, the doped photocatalyst grew abundant (110) crystal planes, which inhibits the recombination of photogenerated electron-hole pairs. Second, the large quantity of OV present in I0.6/BiOCl increased active sites for reactive oxygen species generation, improved photogenerated charge separation, and pollutants adsorption. Lastly, I0.6/BiOCl had a modified electronic band structure enhancing light absorption. Overall, these results describe a promising photocatalyst capable of degrading efficiently major pollutants with different structures.

Automated summary

Crystal plane regulation, defect engineering, and element doping were utilized to enhance the performance of BiOCl for pollutant degradation. Iodine-doped BiOCl nanowafers with (110) crystal planes and oxygen vacancies were prepared and showed excellent photodegradation properties. The iodine-doped photocatalyst achieved high degradation efficiencies for toxic dye and antibiotic, outperforming unmodified BiOCl. The enhanced properties were attributed to the presence of (110) crystal planes, oxygen vacancies, and a modified electronic band structure.