Facile precipitation synthesis of extraordinary visible-light-driven BiOXs photocatalyst

Bismuth halide oxide with three halogen elements (P-BiOXs) catalyst was prepared by a facile precipitation method at room temperature only for 30 min. Several measurement technologies were employed to characterise the structures and morphologies of the obtained samples. Coloured Rhodamine B (RhB), methyl orange (MO), methylene blue (MB) and colourless bisphenol A (BPA) were selected to evaluate the photocatalytic activity of the samples. The experimental results showed the P-BiOXs thin nanoplates exhibited the most excellent photocatalytic activity among the prepared samples for the degradation of MO under visible light illumination. More importantly, the catalyst P-BiOXs could effectively degradate RhB, MB and BPA. The P-BiOXs catalyst displayed good photocatalytic stability by the recycling tests. The highly efficient visible light catalytic properties of P-BiOXs could be due to the high specific surface area, enhanced light-harvesting ability, the suitable bandgap energy and the lower recombination rate of the photogenerated electrons and holes.