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Layer-Contacted Graphene-Like BN/Ultrathin Bi3O4Br Stacking for Boosting Photocatalytic Molecular Oxygen Activation

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Abstract

Novel graphene-like boron nitride (BN)/Bi3O4Br photocatalysts have been controllably synthesized through a facile solvothermal method for the first time. Layer contact stacking between graphene-like BN and ultrathin Bi3O4Br was achieved with strong interaction. Dehalogenation is designed to harvest more visible light, and the ultrathin structure of Bi3O4Br is designed to accelerate charge transfer from inside to the surface. After graphene-like BN was engineered, photocatalytic performance greatly improved under visible light irradiation. Graphene-like BN can act as a surface electron-withdrawing center and adsorption center, facilitating molecular oxygen activation. O2•− was determined to be the main active species during the degradation process through analyses of electron spin resonance and XPS valence band spectra.

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Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 30922010302) and the Start-Up Grant from Nanjing University of Science and Technology (AE89991/397).

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Author notes

  1. Jun Di and Yan Li contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, National Special Superfine Powder Engineering Research Center, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210094, China

    Jun Di & Suwei Wang

  2. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 639798, Singapore

    Jun Di & Yao Wu

  3. School of Physics and Electronic-Electrical Engineering, Ningxia University, Yinchuan, 750000, China

    Yan Li

  4. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Institute for Energy Research, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, 212013, China

    Yi Zhang, Yiling Liu, Huaming Li & Jiexiang Xia

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  1. Jun Di
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Correspondence to Jun Di or Jiexiang Xia.

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Di, J., Li, Y., Zhang, Y. et al. Layer-Contacted Graphene-Like BN/Ultrathin Bi3O4Br Stacking for Boosting Photocatalytic Molecular Oxygen Activation. Trans. Tianjin Univ. 29, 235–245 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12209-022-00344-9

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