Ionic liquid-induced preparation of novel CNTs/PbBiO2Cl nanosheet photocatalyst with boosted photocatalytic activity for the removal of organic contaminants

Abstract Novel layered PbBiO2Cl material exhibited great application potential in the fields of photocatalytic energy conversion and environmental remediation. Unfortunately, the photocatalytic efficiency of pure PbBiO2Cl material is still far from the requirements of practical application due to insufficient light capture ability and rapid recombination of photogenerated carriers. Herein, carbon nanotubes (CNTs)/PbBiO2Cl nanosheets have been synthesized via the ionic liquid (IL) 1-hexadecyl-3-methylimidazolium chlorine ([C16mim]Cl) assisted hydrothermal method. The [C16mim]Cl anchored more CNTs on the surface of PbBiO2Cl material, enabling intimately integration of CNTs and PbBiO2Cl. The rhodamine B (RhB), tetracycline and ciprofloxacin were selected as the target pollutants to evaluate the photocatalytic pollutants degradation performance of CNTs/PbBiO2Cl composites under visible light irradiation. The 5 wt% CNTs/PbBiO2Cl exhibited the highest photocatalytic degradation efficiency (92.5%) toward RhB under visible light irradiation for 2 h. The results of steady-state fluorescence and photoelectrochemical characterizations demonstrated that the intimate structure between CNTs and PbBiO2Cl was favorable for the transfer and separation of photogenerated carriers. This study presents a new insight into enhance molecular oxygen activation for photocatalytic degradation organic pollutants.