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Carbon dots/BiOCl films with enhanced visible light photocatalytic performance

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Abstract

Novel carbon dots with a diameter of 6 nm modified BiOCl (CDs/BiOCl) photocatalyst on FTO was synthesized via a facile immobilization method at room temperature. The crystalline structures, morphologies, optical properties, and photocatalytic properties were studied. The results showed that the CDs/BiOCl films exhibited higher photocatalytic activity than pure BiOCl. The 4 wt% CDs/BiOCl film showed the best photocatalytic activity, which was about eight times than that of pure BiOCl and excellent recyclability even after four recycles. Compared with other film photocatalysts, the photocatalytic activity of 4 wt% CDs/BiOCl was also higher than that of many other photocatalysts. The enhanced activity was ascribed to the enhanced light adsorption and the improvement of charge separation. Holes and superoxide radicals ·O2 − were revealed as the dominant reactive species. The photocatalytic mechanism was proposed based on the results.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, Jinan University, Guangzhou, 510632, People’s Republic of China

    Weitian Lin, Xiang Yu, Yinghua Shen, Hongbin Chen, Yi Zhu & Yuanming Zhang

  2. Analytical & Testing Center, Jinan University, Guangzhou, 510632, People’s Republic of China

    Xiang Yu

  3. Siyuan laboratory, Guangzhou Key Laboratory of Vacuum Coating Technologies and New Energy Materials, Department of Physics, Jinan University, Guangzhou, 510632, People’s Republic of China

    Hui Meng

Authors
  1. Weitian Lin
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  2. Xiang Yu
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  3. Yinghua Shen
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  4. Hongbin Chen
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  5. Yi Zhu
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  6. Yuanming Zhang
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  7. Hui Meng
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Correspondence to Yi Zhu.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Major Science and Techology Program for Water Pollution Control and Treatment (No. 2013ZX07105-005).

Additional information

Weitian Lin and Xiang Yu are contributed equally to this work.

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Lin, W., Yu, X., Shen, Y. et al. Carbon dots/BiOCl films with enhanced visible light photocatalytic performance. J Nanopart Res 19, 56 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-017-3764-3

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