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Significantly boosting the visible light activity of BiOCl by facile solvothermal doping with chromium

Journal of Sol-Gel Science and Technology volume 105, pages 793–803 (2023)Cite this article

Abstract

Due to the unique layered crystal structure, BiOCl is potential as a semiconductor photocatalyst but limited by the insufficient absorption of visible light. In this work, Cr-doped and oxygen vacancy contained BiOCl photocatalyst (Cr-BOC) with uniform diameter around 1 µm was successfully synthesized without changing the morphology via a facile solvothermal method in ethylene glycol solvent. The prepared Cr-BOC doped with 5% Cr exhibits more outstanding visible light photocatalytic performance than BiOCl, totally decomposes 99.2% rhodamine B (RhB) only within 4 min irradiation with a largest apparent rate constant (k) of 1.0112 min−1, which are much higher than that of pure BiOCl (64.4% and 0.2134 min−1). On the basis of a series of characterizations, it is concluded that the remarkable photocatalytic activity was attributed to the increased specific surface area of Cr-BOC (38.25 m2 g−1) compared with BiOCl (13.33 m2 g−1) and improved photoinduced carrier separation efficiency by the doping energy level after the introduction of Cr ions. Moreover, the active species trapping experiments indicate that all the hole, superoxide radical and hydroxyl radical participate in the photocatalytic process of RhB degradation. This work shows the great potential of Cr-BOC as a photocatalyst towards organic pollutant degradation.

Graphical abstract

Cr-doped BiOCl photocatalyst with abundant oxygen vacancies was successfully synthesized via a facile solvothermal method with outstanding photocatalytic performance to decompose 99.2% rhodamine B only within 4 min visible light irradiation.

Crystal model (a) and promoted mechanism (b) of Cr doped BiOCl.

Highlights

  • Cr-BiOCl photocatalyst was successfully synthesized via a facile solvothermal method.

  • Cr-BiOCl shows enhanced photocatalytic activity in comparison with BiOCl, totally decomposes 99.2% rhodamine B within 4 min irradiation.

  • The remarkable photocatalytic activity of Cr-BiOCl is attributed to the increased specific surface area and charge separation efficiency.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Science and Technology Department of Shaanxi Province (2021JM-386, 2022JM-072), Science and Technology Department of Yulin (CXY-2022-156), Provincial Joint Fund of Shaanxi (2021JLM-28) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (52172099).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Xi’an University of Science and Technology, Xi’an, 710054, China

    Jun Liu, Hui Wang, Hui-Ling Du, Cong-Miao Zhang, Wen-Juan Li & Meng-Jie Chang

  2. SHCCIG Yulin Chemical Co., Ltd, Management Committee of Yushen Industrial Zone, Yulin, 719000, China

    Shi-Jie Song

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  1. Jun Liu
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Liu, J., Wang, H., Du, HL. et al. Significantly boosting the visible light activity of BiOCl by facile solvothermal doping with chromium. J Sol-Gel Sci Technol 105, 793–803 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10971-023-06047-4

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