Facile fabrication of carbon supported Bi2O3-BiOCl-Bi heterostructure to boost ammonia under visible light

In this paper, carbon supported Bi2O3-BiOCl-Bi heterostructures were successfully synthesized via a facile and simple hydrothermal method. A series of structure and morphology testing clearly showed that carbon and metallic Bi were deposited on the surface margin of Bi2O3-BiOCl, which benefited the rapid transfer of internal photogenerated electrons. Photophysical experiments including electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) indicated that the amount of surface oxygen vacancies (OVs) was significantly increased, which act as reactive active sites and therefore effectively enhance the photocatalytic performance. The photocatalytic N2 reduction yield of C@Bi2O3-BiOCl-Bi was remarkably improved to 400 μg·L-1, which was 3.63 times higher than that of BiOCl. This research demonstrated a feasible strategy to construct advanced photocatalyst by incorporating defect-rich structures and surface engineering.