Fabrication of hollow inorganic fullerene-like BiOBr eggshells with highly efficient visible light photocatalytic activity

Novel hollow BiOBr eggshells with inorganic fullerene-like structure have been successfully fabricated on a large scale via a facile ultrasound-assisted anion exchange reaction and subsequent heating treatment process. The products have been characterized by FESEM, TEM, HRTEM, XRD and N-2 adsorption/desorption isotherms. The results reveal that the hollow eggshells possess a pure tetragonal phase BiOBr, with the average thickness of about 12 nm, opening diameters of 500-800 nm and depths of 400600 nm. The walls of eggshells, owning inorganic fullerene-like layered structure, are constructed by nanograins with size of about 10 nm. The average pore diameter of intercrystal mesopore is 2.8 nm and the specific surface is measured to be 36.56 m(2) g(-1.) A possible formation mechanism for BiOBr hollow eggshells is proposed. According to the photodegradation of Rhodamine B under visible light irradiation, the hollow BiOBr eggshells exhibit excellent photocatalytic activity. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.