Tunable BiOCl hierarchical nanostructures for high-efficient photocatalysis under visible light irradiation

A facile polyol-mediated solvothermal method was developed to fabricate BiOCl hierarchical nanostructures (HNs) with controllable morphologies. The obtained BiOCl hierarchical nanostructures were characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), UV–vis diffuse reflection spectroscopy (DRS) and nitrogen adsorption. The BiOCl hierarchical nanostructures (HNs) with ellipsoid-like, sphere-like and flower-like morphologies were constructed of intercrossed nanoflakes or nanosheets. The polyols played significant roles in the fabrication of BiOCl hierarchical nanostructures, which functioned as solvents, reducing and morphology-directing agents. Importantly, the BiOCl hierarchical nanostructures exhibited excellent shape-dependent visible-light-driven photocatalytic activities for Rhodamine B (RhB) degradation, which was much higher than that of 2D BiOCl nanosheets, nanoplates, commercial BiOCl and TiO 2 (anatase). The highly enhanced photocatalytic activities could be ascribed to the contributions of their hierarchical nanostructures, large BET surface areas, strong adsorption capacities and superhydrophilic properties.