posted on 2021-04-13, 17:33authored byXiangbiao Liao, Xin Lan, Nan Ni, Pengfei Yang, Yuan Yang, Xi Chen
Engineering nanostructures for semiconductor
materials is recognized
as an important strategy for achieving excellent photocatalytic activity.
Although multiple nanostructures of bismuth oxychloride (BiOCl) were
reported, their synthesis procedures were still complicated and thus
limited scalable and practical photocatalytic decomposition. Here,
we propose a highly efficient route to achieve BiOCl nanowires through
simply stirring the precursor of Bi2O3 powder
in the saturated NaCl solution at room temperature. The concentration
of NaCl plays a crucial role in growing BiOCl nanowires under the
mechanism of oriented attachment, uncovered by continuous observations
of product morphologies at different reaction stages. Compared to
conventional BiOCl powder, BiOCl nanowires exhibited favorable energy
band structures with narrow band gaps, which are predominated by the
unique structure with a high aspect ratio and exposed active {001}
facets. A superior visible-light photocatalytic activity for degrading
Rhodamine B dye was found in the case of the prepared BiOCl, which
is faster than that for BiOCl nanoparticles and TiO2.