Insight into facet-dependent photocatalytic H2O2 production on BiOCl nanosheets

Hydrogen peroxide is an important high-energy product widely used in various fields. Highly efficient semiconductor photocatalysts, especially those that can produce H2O2 both from water oxidation and O-2 reduction, are eagerly desired. In this work, BiOCl nanosheets with preferentially exposed (001) and (010) facets were synthesized via a simple hydrothermal method. The facet-dependent photocatalytic H2O2 generation activities of these BiOCl nanosheets were assessed. The hydrogen peroxide evolution rate of BiOCl(001) is about 2-fold higher than that of BiOCl(010), which is assigned to the higher separation efficiency of photogenerated charge carriers. Interestingly, both the EPR study and active species trapping experiments demonstrate that the generation of H2O2 on the BiOCl(001) photocatalyst mostly originates from sequential two step single-electron O-2 reduction, while there are two pathways for photocatalytic H2O2 production on BiOCl(010), from both oxygen reduction and water oxidation. This work offers a new strategy to pursue highly efficient semiconductor photocatalysts with two pathways for H2O2 production from both water oxidation and O-2 reduction.

Automated summary

The study investigated the facet-dependent photocatalytic H2O2 generation activities of BiOCl nanosheets, and found that BiOCl(001) has a higher hydrogen peroxide evolution rate compared to BiOCl(010). Different pathways for H2O2 production on the two facets were identified, with BiOCl(001) mainly generating H2O2 through sequential two step single-electron O-2 reduction.