title: Novel AgI-decorated β-Bi₂O₃ nanosheet heterostructured Z-scheme photocatalysts for efficient degradation of organic pollutants with enhanced performance.
abstract: The low photocatalytic activity of single semiconductor photocatalysts mainly originates from their fast recombination of photogenerated electron-hole pairs. Constructing nanosheet-based composite photocatalysts is an effective way to enhance the charge separation efficiency of photogenerated electron-hole pairs. In this work, AgI-decorated β-Bi2O3 nanosheet heterostructured photocatalysts were prepared by a facile method. The as-obtained AgI/β-Bi2O3 heterostructures exhibited enhanced visible-light-driven photocatalytic activity towards the degradation of methyl orange (MO) and tetracycline hydrochloride (TC) in aqueous solution. The optimum photocatalytic activity of 20%-AgI/β-Bi2O3 for the degradation of MO was about 4.1 and 6.2 times higher than that of AgI and β-Bi2O3. The photocatalytic activity enhancement of AgI/β-Bi2O3 heterostructures could be ascribed to the formation of a Z-scheme system, which results in the efficient space separation of photo-induced charge carriers.
authors.affiliation: School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, China. jbmwgkc@126.com dlj@ujs.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Zhengyuan
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Deli
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Chaosheng
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Xing
authors.forename: Linlin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Min
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Minqiang
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: He