One-pot hydrothermal fabrication of basic bismuth nitrate/BiOBr composite with enhanced photocatalytic activity

Abstract An efficient novel basic bismuth nitrate (BBN)/BiOBr composite photocatalyst was first synthesized by one-pot hydrothermal process. Rhodamine B (RhB) solution was applied to evaluate the photocatalytic activity of the as-prepared sample. After BiOBr being modified with BBN, the degradation rate for RhB was improved about 30% compared to pure BiOBr under simulated solar light irradiation for 45 min. The enhanced photocatalytic activity could be attributed to the extended absorption for visible light and lower recombination of photogenerated electron-hole pairs in the BBN/BiOBr composite. Photogenerated hole (h+) and superoxide radical (O2 −) were proved to be the active species for RhB degradation reaction. Last, the photodegradation mechanism was put forward to illustrate the enhanced photocatalytic performance.