Oxygen vacancies mediated BiOCl ultrathin nanobelts: Boosting molecular oxygen activation for efficient organic pollutants degradation.

Photocatalysis technology has been considered as a sustainable and promising strategy for pollutant degradation. However, the photocatalytic activity is limited by the unsatisfactory carrier separation efficiency of photocatalysts and insufficient reactive oxygen species. Herein, the oxygen vacancies (OVs) mediated BiOCl ultra-thin nanobelt (ROV BiOCl) was fabricated via solvothermal method. The surface oxygen vacancies can act as the 'electron sink' and boost charge separation. Thus, the ROV BiOCl shows superior photocatalytic performance, which is 2.72 and 4.52 times compared to deficient oxygen vacancies BiOCl (DOV BiOCl) and Bulk BiOCl for colored organic pollutants degradation, respectively. Besides, the ROV BiOCl also displays excellent removal efficiency for refractory antibiotics, roughly 4.00 and 7.45 times compared to that of DOV BiOCl and Bulk BiOCl, respectively. Furthermore, the intermediates for photocatalytic degradation were determined through HPLC-MS and the possible degradation paths of the target molecules were inferred. Capture experiment and ESR spectra confirmed that the O played a vital role for the organic pollutant degradation. This work provides a new perspective for the design of advanced semiconductors for organic pollutants degradation.