An efficient Ce-BiOI/luffa photocatalyst with enhanced visible light photocatalytic activity for organic dyes degradation

In this paper, Ce-BiOI was innovatively prepared by a facile hydrothermal method followed by Ce-BiOI immobilizing on luffa via co-precipitation process with assistant of ionic liquid. The Ce-BiOI/luffa photocatalyst were measured by different characterization techniques including x-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometry, photoluminescence (PL) spectra and UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS). Photocatalytic performance of Ce-BiOI/luffa was investigated by degradation of Azocarmine G (ACG) under visible light irradiating. 99.9% of ACG was degraded by Ce-BiOI/luffa photocatalyst after 200 min of visible light irradiating. At the same time, photocatalytic degradating efficiency remained at 98.5% after six-cycles tests. Enhancements of photocatalytic activity were believed to relate with the strong visible light adsorption and efficient charge separation of photogenerated electron-hole pairs. To fathom the optimum condition, influences of Ce-BiOI/luffa loading ratio and initial ACG concentration was studied in this work. Furthermore, reactive species trapping experiments were carried out to verify that holes (h + ) and superoxide radical anions (·O 2 − ) were the main reactive species in ACG decomposition.