Regulating the relative content of •O2- and •OH for PCPNa degradation on BiOCl plates with controllable exposed crystal faces and surface oxygen vacancies

Abstract Many active species (h + , e - , · O 2 - , · OH and so on) participate in pentachlorophenol sodium (PCPNa) degradation and make their respective contribution difficult to measure. Very recently, it is found oxygen vacancies on (001) and (010) facets of BiOCl preferred to activate molecular oxygen to produce measurable · O 2 - and · OH radicals under visible light, respectively. In this study, we successfully regulated the relative contents of · O 2 - and · OH by activating molecular oxygen on BiOCl plates with the adjustable (001) and (010) facets and tunable surface oxygen vacancies on their surfaces. By systematically comparing the photocatalytic activity of BiOCl plates and the relative contents of · O 2 - and · OH in different BiOCl systems, we found that it is the increase of · O 2 - other than the change of the molar ratio of · OH to · O 2 - play a crucial role in enhancing the degradation rate of PCPNa. This study provide a new insight on evaluating the contributions of · O 2 - and · OH in PCPNa degradation and be practical for designing the high efficient photocatalysts.