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Fabrication of oxygen-vacancy-rich black-BiOBr/BiOBr heterojunction with enhanced photocatalytic activity

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Abstract

Photocatalysis, as an advanced oxidization process, has been extensively studied in environmental remediation. To suppress the recombination of photogenerated charge carriers, a novel oxygen-vacancy-rich black BiOBr/BiOBr isotype heterojunction has been successfully fabricated by surface hydrogenation. As-prepared samples were comprehensively characterized by various techniques. Photocatalytic activity of as-prepared samples was measured via degradation of colorless organic pollutant (phenol) in water under visible light. It was found that over 90% of phenol were removed over 210 min under visible light, which was double and 4.5 times higher than that of black BiOBr and pure BiOBr, respectively. The enhancement in photocatalytic activity may be attributed to the synergistic effects of isotype heterojunction and oxygen vacancy. Formation of heterojunction facilitated photogenerated charge carriers’ separation. And the surface oxygen vacancies acted electrons acceptors and reactive sites in photocatalytic oxidization process. This work sheds a light on the significance of oxygen vacancies in improving photocatalytic activity.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by State Key Laboratory of High-efficiency Utilization of Coal and Green Chemical Engineering (Grant No.2018-K21). X.M. acknowledges the financial supports from the Key Laboratory of Marine Chemistry Theory and Technology (Ministry of Education, Ocean University of China) and Taishan Scholar Foundation of Shandong province (No. tsqn201909058).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Marine Chemistry Theory and Technology, Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China

    Hongguang Zhang, Liye Zhao, Liang Wang & Xiangchao Meng

  2. State Key Laboratory of High-Efficiency Utilization of Coal and Green Chemical Engineering, Ningxia University, Yinchuan, 750021, China

    Liang Wang & Jian Hao

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  1. Hongguang Zhang
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  2. Liye Zhao
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Zhang, H., Zhao, L., Wang, L. et al. Fabrication of oxygen-vacancy-rich black-BiOBr/BiOBr heterojunction with enhanced photocatalytic activity. J Mater Sci 55, 10785–10795 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-020-04700-9

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