It remains an exciting challenge to achieve a direct production of large quantities of • OH, generated from photogenerated h + using visible-light-driven photocatalysts fabricated by a one-step method. In this work, a series of hierarchical interconnected BiOCl materials with a tunable absorption range for visible light have been successfully prepared through a one-pot molecular self-assembly technology at room temperature. Depending on the modification of polar organic molecules [i.e., thiourea (TU)], the nonpolar layered semiconductor (BiOCl) turned into an efficient visible-light photocatalyst because it possesses a narrower band gap by surface modification introducing oxygen defects. Meanwhile, the tunable three-dimensional hierarchical architecture of BiOCl was fabricated via the self-assembly of two-dimensional nanosheets with the aid of TU, leading to an enhanced specific surface area along with efficient electron−hole pair separation. Moreover, the obtained BiOCl-10 showed a more positive valence band with an optimized hierarchical porous structure, which produced a sufficient amount of • OH directly from the reaction between photogenerated h + and water molecules under visible light. Thereby, the BiOCl-10 materials exhibit high photocatalytic activities for almost completely degrading tetracycline and rhodamine B in 20 min, about 20 times better than that of pure BiOCl. Our work provided an innovation strategy that may deliver a promising way to fabricate BiOCl materials with highly efficient visible photocatalytic activity by direct production of large quantities • OH through its photogenerated h + .
Electrochemical capacitors (EC) bear faster charge-discharge; however, their real applications are still on a long away due to lower capacitance and energy densities which mainly arise from simple surface charge accumulation or/and reaction. Here, a novel synthesis strategy was designed to obtain the purposeful hybrids of nickel cobalt double hydroxide (NiCoDH) with genetic morphology to improve their electrochemical performance as electrode of EC. Nanostructures of metal hydroxides were grown on t he nitrogen-doped graphene (NG) sheets by utilizing defects as nucleation sites and their composition was optimized both by tuning the ratio of Ni:Co as well as the counter halogen and carbonate anions to improve the porosity, stabilize the structure and mediate the redox reaction. The growth of the hybrids was guided by the Co ions through topochemical transformation supported by hoping charge transfer process and olation growth. NG overcoating successfully protects the nanostructure of NiCoDH during electrochemical test and enhances overall conductivity of the electrode, improving the mass and ionic transportations. As a result, the hybrid exhibits excellent capacitance of 2925 F g −1 at 1 A g −1 , as well as long cyclic stability of 10,000 cycles with good capacity retention of 90% at 16 A g −1 . Furthermore, the hybrid shows excellent energy and power densities of 52 Wh kg −1 and 3191 W kg −1 , respectively at discharge rate of 16 A g −1 . It is expected that this strategy can be readily extended to other metal hydroxides, oxides and sulphides to improve their electrochemical performances.
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