Oxygen-vacancy-rich BiOCl materials with ultrahigh photocatalytic efficiency by etching bismuth glass

Abstract

Bismuth oxychloride (BiOCl) is a promising photocatalyst material for water purification to remove organic pollutants. However, BiOCl materials can only degrade pollutants under ultraviolet-light owing to their wide band gap. Herein, we propose a simple synthesis route based on Bi₂O₃–B₂O₃–ZnO–SrO–Na₂O (BBZSN) glass to fabricate 3D hierarchical-structured BiOCl materials with rich oxygen vacancies (OVs), which were introduced from BBZSN glass and inhibited the recombination of electron–hole pairs and adjusted the band structure. The photocatalytic activity of the obtained 3D hierarchical-structured BiOCl photocatalyst was evaluated by the degradation of Rhodamine B (RhB) under ultraviolet light and visible light. The experimental results suggested that the as-fabricated flower-shape BiOCl–NaCl could effectively degrade RhB under ultraviolet light (92.7%/20 min) or visible light (71.4%/20 min, 92.8%/100 min) respectively, which indicates its potential to be applied in environmental remediation.