Abstract
A series of ultrathin BiOCl 2D nanosheet photocatalysts were prepared by the TBAOH-assisted hydrolysis method in water. The effects of tetrabutylammonium hydroxide (TBAOH) dosages, chlorine source, preparation pH value, ultrasonic treatment, and magnetic stirring on the photocatalytic degradation dynamics of carbamazepine were examined under visible-light irradiation to optimize the preparation parameters. It was found that ultrathin BiOCl prepared with TBAOH dosages of 1 mmol and chlorine source of NaCl in the pH of 2 upon magnetic stirring of 6 h displayed the highest photocatalytic degradation rate constant (0.0038 min−1) of carbamazepine, which is 7.6 times higher than that with the ordinary BiOCl (without TBAOH). To clarify the mechanism on the outstanding photocatalytic activity of ultrathin BiOCl, the elemental composition/state, micromorphology, and separation efficiency of photogenerated electron-hole pairs were investigated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscope (SEM), and photoluminescence (PL). Results showed that the presence of oxygen vacancy, ultrathin nanosheet structure, and improved separation efficiency of photogenerated electron-hole pairs contributed to the excellent photocatalytic degradation activity of ultrathin BiOCl. The obtained result provides a novel method to fabricate ultrathin BiOCl with excellent photocatalytic degradation activity of carbamazepine under visible-light irradiation.
Highlights
Pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) as a new type of pollutants have been of growing concerns because of the biological toxicity and biorefractory nature [1]
Carbamazepine is hard to be degraded from current wastewater treatment processes and appears to be remarkably persistent in a variety of water bodies including surface water, effluent from sewage treatment plant, and even in drinking water. e presence of carbamazepine is always associated with chronic toxicity to human and ecological environment [3]. erefore, it is urgent to find a green and environmentally friendly method to degrade carbamazepine in water
It can be seen that the addition of tetrabutylammonium hydroxide (TBAOH) promoted the carbamazepine degradation kinetics under the photocatalytic reaction of Bismuth oxychloride (BiOCl), as the degradation rate constant increased over the BiOCl samples prepared in the presence
Summary
Pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) as a new type of pollutants have been of growing concerns because of the biological toxicity and biorefractory nature [1]. Photocatalytic technology has been reported to effectively degrade environmental pollutants due to the production of highly active redox species, such as electron (e−), hole (h+), hydroxyl radical (·OH), and superoxide radical (O2 −) [4,5,6]. Dong et al prepared H-TiO2/BiOCl heterojunction with improved photocatalytic activity under the visible light by a facile solvothermal method [16]. Elemental doping is an efficient method to improve the visible-light-driven photocatalytic activity of BiOCl, since its intrinsic light absorption is improved. Xu et al described a novel bulk doping strategy to extend the light by bulk W-doping of BiOCl [17] These methods are associated with massive organic solvents, high cost, or cumbersome procedures. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscope (SEM), and photoluminescence (PL) were employed to clarify the elemental composition/state, micromorphology, and separation efficiency of photogenerated electron-hole pairs of the as-prepared BiOCl samples
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