3D flower-like mesoporous Bi4O5I2/MoS2 Z-scheme heterojunction with optimized photothermal-photocatalytic performance

3D flower-like hierarchical mesoporous Bi4O5I2/MoS2 Z-scheme layered heterojunction photocatalyst was fabricated by oil bath and hy-drothermal methods. The heterojunction with narrow band gap of similar to 1.95 eV extended the photoresponse to near-infrared region, which showed obvious photothermal effect due to the introduction of MoS2 with broad spectrum response. MoS2 nanosheets were anchored onto the surface of flower-like hierarchical mesoporous Bi4O5I2 nanosheets, thereby forming efficient layered heterojunctions, the solar-driven photocatalytic ef-ficiency in degradation of highly toxic dichlorophenol and reduction of hexavalent chromium was improved to 98.5% and 99.2%, which was similar to 4 and 7 times higher than that of the pristine Bi4O5I2, respectively. In addition, the photocatalytic hydrogen production rate reached 496.78 mmol h 1 g(-1), which was similar to 6 times higher than that of the pristine Bi4O5I2. The excellent photocatalytic performance can be ascribed to the promoted photothermal effect, as well as, the formation of compact Z-scheme layered heterojunctions. The 3D flower-like hierarchical mesoporous structure provided adequate surface active-sites, which was conducive to the mass transfer. Moreover, the high stability of the prepared photocatalyst further promoted its potential practical application. This strategy also provides new insights for fabricating layered Z-scheme heterojunctions photocatalysts with highly photothermal-photocatalytic efficiency. (c) 2021 Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communi-cations Co., Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).