A Facile Synthesis of BiO(ClBr)0.5-x/2Ix Microsphere Assembly as High-efficiency Visible-light Driven Photocatalyst

Using a facile refluxing synthesis, a series of BiO(ClBr)(0.5-x/2)I-x solid solutions was prepared and applied as photocatalysts for the degradation of organic pollutants. The synthesized solid solutions crystallized in microspheres are constructed by nanoplates which transform into nanosheets for increasing iodine ions contents. Furthermore, introducing iodine ions significantly decreased the optical bandgap of the obtained solid solutions. The photocatalytic activity of these samples over the degradation of Rhodamine B indicates the highest performance of the solid-solution at x=0.2 with a decomposition efficiency of 92.6 % for 120 mins of reaction under the light emission diode (LED) irradiation which is much higher than that of pure sample and BiOCl0.5Br0.5. This enhancement in photocatalytic performance was attributed to the effective separation of photo-induced electron-hole pairs.

Automated summary

A series of BiO(ClBr)(0.5-x/2)I-x solid solutions were prepared using a facile refluxing synthesis and applied as photocatalysts for the degradation of organic pollutants. The synthesized solid solutions are constructed by nanoplates which transform into nanosheets for increasing iodine ions contents. Introducing iodine ions significantly decreased the optical bandgap of the obtained solid solutions. The solid-solution at x=0.2 showed the highest photocatalytic activity with a decomposition efficiency of 92.6% for 120 mins of reaction under LED irradiation, surpassing the performance of pure sample and BiOCl0.5Br0.5. This enhancement in photocatalytic performance was attributed to the effective separation of photo-induced electron-hole pairs.