Tunable Absorption and Emission in Mixed Halide Bismuth Oxyhalides for Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting

Layered materials such as bismuth oxyhalides (especially BiOBr and BiOI) are the focus of research attention as photocatalysts due to their visible light activity, unique electronic structure, excellent chemical and physical stability, and internal electric field effect. We report the solvothermal synthesis of BiOX solid solutions with continuously tunable optical absorption and photoluminescence spectra. We employed solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (SSNMR) characterization to probe the local environment around Bi atoms. We determined that the synthesized BiOX solid solutions exhibit good agreement with Vegard’s law through refinement of the lattice parameters using powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) and complementary atomic-level 209Bi SSNMR spectroscopy. The solid solution strategy makes it possible to modulate the light absorption of BiOX and tune the redox potentials corresponding to the electronic band edges to drive chemical reactions. The BiOX solid solutions demonstrated superior performance in sunlight-driven photoelectrochemical and photocatalytic water splitting. The best performing solid solution generated a photocurrent density of 1.5 mA cm–2 and a H2 evolution rate of 16.32 μmol g–1 h–1 for photoelectrochemical water splitting and photocatalytic hydrogen generation, respectively, and the enhanced performance is attributed to a higher specific surface area, a shorter carrier transit distance, and a higher electron density. The approximate order of magnitude performance improvement compared to pristine BiOBr and BiOI photoanodes was primarily due to optimal light harvesting combined with adequate thermodynamic driving force to drive water oxidation and proton reduction.