Fabrication of graphene/Bi12O17Cl2 as an effective visible-light photocatalyst

The novel graphene/Bi12O17Cl2 photocatalysts were successfully prepared and measured through XRD, XPS, SEM, TEM, DRS, PL instruments. The results found that added graphene could conduce to photoinduced electrons fast transfer and improved visible light response efficiency, obtaining better separation rate of photoinduced charge for graphene/Bi12O17Cl2 system. When graphene/Bi12O17Cl2 photocatalysts were used to photodegrade Rhodamine B, the optimized graphene/Bi12O17Cl2 photocatalyst exhibited an enhanced degradation rate (0.160 min(-1)) in comparison to bare Bi12O17Cl2 (0.0613 min(-1)). Meanwhile, graphene/Bi12O17Cl2 might also maintain excellent sustained degraded ability. Eventually, according to the experiments of active species capture and ESR measurement, a rational mechanism for the improvement of photocatalytic capacity over graphene/Bi12O17Cl2 photocatalyst was presented.