Bi 3 O 4 Cl/Bi 4 NbO 8 Cl Z-scheme heterojunction catalysts for enhanced photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants

Although Bi 3 O 4 Cl is a kind of semiconductor catalyst driven by visible light, which possesses a layered structure and high chemical stability; however, the fast recombination of electron–hole pairs still limits its photocatalytic activity. In this work, the heterojunction combined Bi 3 O 4 Cl and Bi 4 NbO 8 Cl with a particle size of about 30–70 nm is constructed by a solid-state reaction method to improve the photocatalytic performance. XRD, TEM, XPS, and some other measurements are used to characterize the structure, morphology, and optical properties of the samples. Compared with Bi 3 O 4 Cl, the Bi 3 O 4 Cl/Bi 4 NbO 8 Cl Z-scheme photocatalyst shows a better photocatalytic performance, with 80% removal for ciprofloxacin (CIP) and 78% for bisphenol A (BPA) after 3-h illumination.