Oxygen-vacancy-rich BiOCl materials with ultrahigh photocatalytic efficiency by etching bismuth glass

Bismuth oxychloride (BiOCl) is a promising photocatalyst material for water purification to remove organic pollutants. However, BiOCl materials can only degrade pollutants under ultraviolet-light owing to their wide band gap. Herein, we propose a simple synthesis route based on Bi₂O₃-B₂O₃-ZnO-SrO-Na₂O (BBZSN) glass to fabricate 3D hierarchical-structured BiOCl materials with rich oxygen vacancies (OVs), which were introduced from BBZSN glass and inhibited the recombination of electron-hole pairs and adjusted the band structure. The photocatalytic activity of the obtained 3D hierarchical-structured BiOCl photocatalyst was evaluated by the degradation of Rhodamine B (RhB) under ultraviolet light and visible light. The experimental results suggested that the as-fabricated flower-shape BiOCl-NaCl could effectively degrade RhB under ultraviolet light (92.7%/20 min) or visible light (71.4%/20 min, 92.8%/100 min) respectively, which indicates its potential to be applied in environmental remediation.