Purposefully designing Co-S-codoping in hierarchical BiOCl architectures and elucidating the mechanism for enhanced visible-light-driven photocatalytic activity

Simultaneously doping metal and nonmetal species into BiOCl photocatalysts is an efficient way to tailor the valence band and conduction band for enhanced both solar light harvesting and photocharge separation. However, the investigation on metal-nonmetal codoping of BiOCl photocatalysts is still less so far. Herein, the codoping of Co and S species into hierarchical BiOCl architectures (denoted as BOC-Co-S) is realized by a simple one-pot hydrothermal method. The as-prepared BOC-Co-S samples demonstrated remarkably high-efficient visible-light-driven photocatalytic performances toward the degradation of Rhodamine B and tetracycline compared with the Co-doped BiOCl, S-doped BiOCl and pure BiOCl samples. The improved photodegradation activities of BOC-Co-S samples can be ascribed to the increased solar light harvesting, efficient charge separation and sufficient activity sites derived from Co-S codoping. This study might provide a promising strategy to further explore simple and economic organic-free routes for the development of high-active bismuth oxyhalides-based photocatalysts.