In situ synthesis of Pt and N co-doped hollow hierarchical BiOCl microsphere as an efficient photocatalyst for organic pollutant degradation and photocatalytic CO2 reduction

Abstract Development of efficient photocatalyst via a simple method is critical for environmental remediation and energy conversion. Herein, a highly efficient N and Pt co-doped hollow hierarchical BiOCl microsphere (HHBs) photocatalyst was prepared by an in situ hydrothermal method. HHBs was assembled by numerous interleaving nanosheets petals with small thickness. The synthesized photocatalyst exhibited excellent photocatalytic performance for photoreduction of CO2 into hydrocarbons and photodegradation of organic contaminant (ciprofloxacin (CIP) and rhodamine B (RhB)), which can be attributed to the scattering effect and surface reflecting caused by the hierarchical architecture, the N doping that narrows the band gap, and the Schottky barrier due to the existence of Pt that improves the charge transfer and carrier separation. The Pt1/N0.25-HHBs with optimal content of Pt and N exhibited the fastest degradation rate for CIP (0.011 min−1) and RhB (0.144 min−1). Besides, the yields of methanol and ethanol over Pt1/N0.25-HHBs were 328.7 and 113.2 µmol/gcat in 8 h of simulated sunlight irradiation, respectively, which were 3.4 and 5.7 times higher than that over single HHBs. Moreover, possible mechanism of excellent photocatalytic performance of Pt1/N0.25-HHBs was also investigated. This work represented a promising candidate photocatalyst for environmental remediation and energy conversion using cost efficient materials.