Facile preparation of BiOCl/Ti₃C₂ hybrid photocatalyst with enhanced visible-light photocatalytic activity

Abstract

In the present work, a novel BiOCl/Ti 3 C 2 nanostructured composite was synthesized using a simple precipitation method. The morphology and structure of the nanocomposite were characterized while its photocatalytic properties were studied using methyl orange dye (MO) as the model pollutant under visible-light irradiation. The results indicated that the obtained BiOCl has flower-like nanostructured morphology, which is composed of nanosheets. After the introduction of Ti 3 C 2 , the petaloid-shaped BiOCl grew on the surface layers of Ti 3 C 2 . Additionally, the photocatalytic degradation tests of MO showed that the BiOCl/Ti 3 C 2 nanocomposite had a much higher degradation efficiency compared to that of the pristine BiOCl. Herein, a possible photocatalytic mechanism for BiOCl/Ti 3 C 2 nanocomposites was also proposed. The results suggest that the Ti 3 C 2 addition can effectively promote the photoelectron separation from vacancies, which leads to photocatalytic activity enhancement of the BiOCl/Ti 3 C 2 composite.