Study on photocatalytic degradation of phenol by BiOI/Bi2WO6 layered heterojunction synthesized by hydrothermal method

Abstract In this paper, a novel BiOI/Bi2WO6 heterojunction photocatalyst that responds to visible light was synthesized by hydrothermal method. The photocatalyst is a flower-like layered microsphere structure composed of many nanosheets. The influence of the molar ratio of BiOI and Bi2WO6 on heterojunction photocatalyst activity was investigated, compared with pure BiOI and pure Bi2WO6, BiOI/Bi2WO6 which formed heterojunctions showed higher photocatalytic activity, among which BiOI/Bi2WO6(2,1) had the highest photocatalytic activity for phenol. Five cycles of photocatalytic experiments, it was found that the photocatalytic performance of the sample did not significantly reduced, indicating that the photocatalyst has good stability and reusability. In addition, the enhancement mechanism of photocatalytic activity was explored, and it was proved that hole was the main active substance, and the enhancement of photocatalytic activity was mainly since the generated electrons and holes are separated in the two semiconductor materials, inhibiting their recombination. This study provides a new idea and method for visible light degradation of organic pollutants.