Morphology-dependent photocatalytic and photoelectrochemical performance of bismuth oxybromide crystals applied to malachite green dye degradation

Bismuth oxybromide (BiOBr) has received notable attention as a possible active solar photocatalyst with ratio-nally high catalytic yield, although it still requires further alteration to enhance the photocatalytic activity. In this work, the BiOBr microstructures are synthesized in a controlled manner using two bromide sources, i.e., ammonium bromide (NH4Br) and cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), which has been found to have a significant effect on the architecture of the BiOBr photocatalyst. CTAB induces the formation of 3D spherical hierarchical microflowers with curved nanoflakes, while NH4Br results in the formation of 3D flower-like open petal structures. The nature of final BiOBr products which were synthesized with different bromide sources is studied by their photo-electrocatalytic performances with a series of analytical techniques. The CTAB-assisted synthetic BiOBr sample (BiOBr-CT) showed the best photocatalytic and photoelectrochemical activities compared to NH4Br-assisted BiOBr (BiOBr-NH). BiOBr-CT shows a rate constant of 0.057 min-1 for the degra-dation of malachite green dye which is mostly used in the textile industry.

Automated summary

In this study, BiOBr microstructures with different architectures were synthesized using different bromide sources. The CTAB-assisted BiOBr sample showed the best photocatalytic and photoelectrochemical activities, indicating the significant effect of the bromide source on the performance of BiOBr.