Room temperature synthesis of tetragonal BiOI photocatalyst with surface heterojunction between (0 0 1) facets and (1 1 0) facets

Abstract At room temperature, tetragonal BiOI photocatalyst with surface heterojunction between (0 0 1) facets and (1 1 0) facets was prepared by controlling the amount of water in the hydrolysis process. The prepared samples with different proportions of (0 0 1) surface and (1 1 0) surface were characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, HRTEM and UV-vis. The photocatalytic performance for the MO degradation under visible light can be attributed to the formation of interfacial heterojunction between the (0 0 1) surface and (1 1 0) surface, which promotes the separation of photoinduced electron and hole pairs on the interfaces.