Microwave-Solvothermal Synthesis of Nanostructured BiOBr with Excellent Visible-Light Photocatalytic Properties

Shuisheng Wu,Shaoyun Shan,Qian Dong,Yaming Wang,Yanlin Sun,Qingming Jia,Jun Wang

doi:10.1155/2015/489029

Shuisheng Wu, Shaoyun Shan + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1155/2015/489029

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Abstract

Novel BiOBr hierarchical microspheres have been successfully prepared via a facile microwave-assisted solvothermal route and used for visible-light photocatalytic degradation of RhB. The phase and morphology of the products were characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TG), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), BET, and UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectra. The SEM observations displayed that BiOBr flower-like nanostructure assembled from nanosheets. The BiOBr flower-like nanostructure, with a narrow band gap (2.63 eV), shows excellent photocatalytic activity in the degradation of RhB dye under visible-light, much higher than those of BiOBr nanosheet and P25 photocatalysts.

Highlights

BiOBr as one of the ternary compounds has aroused tremendous interest amidst scientific communities, since it can be used as photocatalysts [1,2,3] and as pigments in the cosmetic industry [4]
We report the successful synthesis of BiOBr hierarchical microspheres constructed by nanosheets through a facile and rapid microwave-assisted solvothermal route
The phase and crystallographic structure of the as-obtained samples were examined by Xray diffraction (XRD)

Summary

Introduction

BiOBr as one of the ternary compounds has aroused tremendous interest amidst scientific communities, since it can be used as photocatalysts [1,2,3] and as pigments in the cosmetic industry [4]. In view of the fact that the unique properties of nanomaterials are structure dependent [5,6,7], scientists have paid much attention to the controllable synthesis of BiOBr with nanosized particles such as hydrolysis process [8, 9], reverse microemulsion synthesis [10], and solvothermal process [11] and of hierarchical microspheres morphology [12,13,14,15,16,17,18]. Microwave-hydrothermal reaction has been used as an effective method for the synthesis of nanoparticles of various oxides [20, 21]. We report the successful synthesis of BiOBr hierarchical microspheres constructed by nanosheets through a facile and rapid microwave-assisted solvothermal route. The visible-light photocatalytic properties of BiOBr samples were studied

Experiment Section

Results and Discussion

Conclusions