BiOCl/SnS2 hollow spheres for the photocatalytic degradation of waste water

The doping effect of a new dopant to BiOCl as photocatalyst is studied. SnS2 as a narrow-band-gap semiconductor is used to tune the electronic and band structure of wide-band-gap BiOCl. BiOCl/SnS2 hollow spheres are synthesized by a facile and economic one-pot hydrothermal method. The shell of the hollow spheres is composed by BiOCl and SnS2, but the outermost layer is BiOCl. BiOCl/SnS2 hollow spheres exhibit much higher photocatalytic activity than pure SnS2 and BiOCl in the degradation of rhodamine-B under visible light and sun-light irradiation. The improvement is explained by the band structure tuning effect by SnS2 and the morphological benefits of the hollow sphere structure.