A Novel and Facile Method to Synthesize Self-Assembled BiOCl Core-shell Microspheres Composed of Nanoplates

Abstract

The self-assembled BiOCl core-shell microspheres composed of nanoplates have been successfully prepared using solvothermal method using ethylene glycol and polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) as solvents. XRD, SEM, EDX, XPS and DRS characterizations have been performed to study the crystal structure, morphology, composition and optical property of the as-prepared BiOCl materials. The XRD results indicate that the obtained BiOCl materials are high-purity and single-phase. The SEM results show that the as-prepared BiOCl powders are core-shell microspheres with diameters about 1 µm, and the core and shell of these microspheres are composed of many longitudinal grown nanoplates. The EDX and XPS results reveal that the atomic ratio of Bi/O/Cl in the sample is approximately equal to 1:1:1. Moreover, the DRS spectra reveal that the band gap of the resulting sample is estimated to be about 2.92 eV. The results of photocatalytic activity show that the as-prepared BiOCl core-shell microspheres exhibit more excellent activity than P25 (Degussa, commercial TiO₂ powder manufactured by flame hydrolysis) under visible light irradiation.