Efficiently Piezo-catalytic Generation of Reactive Oxygen Species on Phosphorus-Doped BiOCl Enhancing Micropollutants Degradation

Piezo-catalysis has been widely studied for water environment remediation, but still faces weak intrinsic piezo-response and lack of active sites for generating reactive oxygen species. In this study, phosphorus-doped BiOCl (PBOC) is rationally designed for efficient piezo-catalytic degradation of bisphenol B (BPB). Characterization results reveal that phosphorus is doped in the lattice by chlorine substitution, accompanied by the generation of a substantial amount of oxygen vacancies (OVs). This enhances the material's molecular dipole, resulting in increased intrinsic piezoelectricity. Simultaneously, the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), including hydroxyl and superoxide radicals, is significantly higher than BOC. The piezo-catalytic degradation rate of BPB by PBOC increases to 0.179 min^-1, which is 7.8 times that of BOC. Density functional theoretical (DFT) calculations reveal that the doped P and the simultaneous generation of OVs not only enhance the molecular dipole, but also serve as active sites for adsorbing and activating O₂ and H₂O to efficiently generate superoxide radicals and hydroxyl radicals, respectively. This work demonstrates a simple but efficient approach to promote piezo-catalytic environment remediation.