Porous BiOBr/Bi2MoO6 Heterostructures for Highly Selective Adsorption of Methylene Blue

Porous BiOBr/Bi2MoO6 (Br/Mo) heterostructures were designed and successfully fabricated, in which BiOBr nanoparticles were deposited on the surface of the secondary nanoplate of three-dimensional porous Bi2MoO6 architectures through a deposition-precipitation process. The as-prepared Br/Mo heterostructures were used as an adsorbent to remove methylene blue (MB) from aqueous solution. The batch adsorption results indicated that 50.0 wt % Br/Mo heterostructures show an enhanced adsorption capacity compared with pure Bi2MoO6 and BiOBr. The effects of initial solution, initial concentration, and contact time were systematically investigated. The optimum adsorbent amount and the pH value were determined to be 0.8 g L-1 and 2, respectively. Meanwhile, the experiments also revealed that porous Br/Mo heterostructures possess higher preferential adsorptivity for MB than that for methyl orange (MO-) and rhodamine B (RhB+). The dynamic experimental result indicated that the adsorption process conforms to the pseudo-second-order kinetic model. Weber's intraparticle diffusion model indicated that two steps took place during the adsorption process. Thermodynamic analysis results showed that the adsorption is a physisorption process, which conforms to the Langmuir isotherm model. Additionally, the possible adsorption mechanism was also investigated. The present study implied that Br/Mo heterostructures are promising candidates as adsorbents for MB removal. Therefore, fabrication of semiconductor-based heterostructures could be a strategy to design new efficient adsorbents for the removal of environmental pollutants.