Immobilization of bismuth oxychloride on cellulose nanocrystal for photocatalytic sulfonylation of arylacetylenic acids with sodium arylsulfinates under visible light

Abstract

As an ideal matrix material, cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) has abundant hydroxyl groups and high specific surface area, which are beneficial to construct oxygen vacancies in BiOCl and achieve high dispersion of BiOCl on the surface of the matrix. Herein, we used a facile method to prepare a kind of BiOCl/CNC composite, which exhibited excellent visible light catalytic performance and recyclability in the preparation of arylacetylene sulfones. • A Stable and efficient BiOCl/CNC photocatalytic composite was prepared. • The CNC is conducive to the establishment of oxygen vacancies of BiOCl/CNC. • BiOCl/CNC had a good photocatalytic performance in the sulfonylation reaction. As a promising semiconductor photocatalyst, BiOCl has been widely used in the field of environmental protection. However, due to its weak ability to absorb visible light, the application of BiOCl in other important photocatalytic fields has been significantly limited, such as organic synthesis. In this work, a facile method was used to prepare a highly efficient heterogeneous nano-photocatalyst BiOCl/cellulose nanocrystal (CNC). Subsequently, the BiOCl/CNC was verified by XPS, ESR, BET and other characterization methods. The results show that not only the strong interaction between BiOCl and CNC increases the visible light absorption intensity of the composite, but also the combination of BiOCl and CNC makes the specific area of the catalyst more than twofold. In addition, a large number of hydroxyl groups contained in CNC can be combined with the B O bond in BiOCl through hydrogen bonds, forming abundant oxygen vacancies on BiOCl/CNC. Excitedly, these changes enable BiOCl/CNC to exhibit excellent photocatalytic performance and regeneration performance in the sulfonation reaction of arylacetylene acid and sodium arylsulfinate, with a yield of up to 96%. This work represents a step towards a low-cost, environmentally friendly composite of cellulose and BiOCl, which will provide useful enlightenment for future exploration in related fields.