Highly improved visible-light-induced photocatalytic performance over BiOI/Ag2CO3 heterojunctions

Nan Wang; Lei Shi; Lizhu Yao; Caiyun Lu; Yan Shi; Jianmin Sun

doi:10.1039/C7RA10423E

Highly improved visible-light-induced photocatalytic performance over BiOI/Ag₂CO₃ heterojunctions†

Nan Wang,^a Lei Shi,

*^a Lizhu Yao,^a Caiyun Lu,^a Yan Shi^a and Jianmin Sun

*^b

Author affiliations

* Corresponding authors

^a College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Environmental Engineering, Liaoning Shihua University, Fushun 113001, China
E-mail: shilei_hit@qq.com
Tel: +86-18340316558

^b State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, MIIT Key Laboratory of Critical Materials Technology for New Energy Conversion and Storage, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150080, China
E-mail: sunjm@hit.edu.cn

Abstract

A novel BiOI/Ag₂CO₃ composite was synthesized through the co-precipitation method and well characterized by X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy and photoluminescence spectroscopy. Its photocatalytic activity was evaluated for degrading various pollutants (rhodamine B, methylene blue, methyl orange) and phenol aqueous solution. Experimental results indicated that Ag₂CO₃ nanoparticles anchored on the BiOI sheet surface promoted the enhanced photocatalytic activity. Moreover, when the mass ratio of BiOI in BiOI/Ag₂CO₃ composites was 20%, the as-prepared BiOI/Ag₂CO₃ (20 wt%) composite exhibited the optimal photocatalytic activity for degrading rhodamine B; its rate constant was approximately 6.75 and 4.3 times higher than the separate BiOI and Ag₂CO₃. The enhanced photocatalytic performance could be attributed to the heterojunctions between BiOI and Ag₂CO₃. Furthermore, the possible mechanism for photodegradation over the BiOI/Ag₂CO₃ composite is proposed.

This article is part of the themed collection: Editors' collection: Environmental chemistry: Pollution control

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Article information

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/C7RA10423E
Article type: Paper
Submitted: 20 sep 2017
Accepted: 08 dec 2017
First published: 02 jan 2018
This article is Open Access

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RSC Adv., 2018,8, 537-546

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Highly improved visible-light-induced photocatalytic performance over BiOI/Ag₂CO₃ heterojunctions

N. Wang, L. Shi, L. Yao, C. Lu, Y. Shi and J. Sun, RSC Adv., 2018, 8, 537 DOI: 10.1039/C7RA10423E

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