Web Release Date: January 3,
Generalized One-Pot Synthesis, Characterization, and Photocatalytic Activity of Hierarchical BiOX (X = Cl, Br, I) Nanoplate Microspheres
Key Laboratory of Pesticide & Chemical Biology of Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, People's Republic of China
Received: September 17, 2007
In Final Form: October 21, 2007
Abstract:
A general one-pot solvothermal process was explored to prepare BiOX (X = Cl, Br, I) powders by employing
ethylene glycol as the solvent. The as-prepared BiOX powders were characterized by X-ray powder diffraction,
scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, high-resolution transmission electron
microscopy, UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, and nitrogen sorption. The resulting BiOX samples
were phase-pure and of hierarchical microspheres consisting of nanoplates. The band gaps of the as-prepared
powders were estimated to about 3.22, 2.64, and 1.77 eV for BiOCl, BiOBr, and BiOI, respectively. On the
basis of characterization results, we proposed a possible process for the growth of hierarchical BiOX nanoplate
microspheres. Moreover, we evaluated their photocatalytic activities on the degradation of methyl orange
and compared them with TiO2 (Degussa, P25) under UV-vis light irradiation and C-doped TiO2 under visible
light (
> 420 nm) irradiation, respectively. It was found that all the BiOX samples were photocatalytically
active and BiOI exhibited excellent activity under both UV-vis and visible light irradiation. The resulting
hierarchical BiOX nanoplate microspheres are very promising photocatalysts for degrading organic pollutants
and other applications.
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