Preparation by F Doping and Photocatalytic Activities of BiOCl Nanosheets with Highly Exposed (001) Facets

By using F doping, a series of BiOCl nanosheets with highly exposed (001) facets were synthesized by a solvothermal-calcination route. The fabricated bare BiOCl and F doped BiOCl nanosheets were characterized by some physicochemical methods, e.g. X-ray diffraction, N-2 physical absorption, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, ultraviolet-visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and photoelectrochemical measurement. The results show that F doping with moderate content can promote the growth of (110) crystal plane and suppress the crystal size, inducing the for-mation of highly exposed (001) facets. Moreover, an obvious increase in surface area and surface -OH groups were obtained after F-doping. Under simulated sunlight irradiation, F doping obtained significant enhancement in the degradation of rhodamine B, and about 1.67 times increase over F-1.0-BiOCl than that of bare BiOCl. Moreover, the degradation rate of F-1.0-BiOCl was 1.24 times that of commercial P25(TiO2) in removal of acid orange II. The main reasons for the increase of activity are that the exposed (001) facets induced by F-doping promoted dyes adsorption, and the separation of photo-generated electron-hole pair was also accelerated. Therefore, F-BiOCl nanosheets display superior photocatalytic performance for organic dyes degradation.