A facile synthesis of bismuth oxychloride-graphene oxide composite for visible light photocatalysis of aqueous diclofenac sodium

Abstract

In this study, bismuth oxychloride/graphene oxide (BiOCl-GO) composite was fabricated by facile one pot hydrothermal method. The pure BiOCl and BiOCl-GO composite was characterized by X-ray diffraction, Transmission electron microscopy X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and UV–Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. The synthesized composite was then assessed for photocatalytic degradation of diclofenac sodium (DCF) in visible as well as direct solar light and UV irradiation. Results indicated that the photocatalytic removal efficiency of DCF was significantly affected by dose of catalysts, pH value and source of light. The results reveled that degradation efficiency of BiOCl-GO for DCF reduced from 100 to 34.4% with the increases in DCF initial concentration from 5 mg L −1 to 25 mg L −1 . The solar light degradation of DCF using BiOCl-GO was achieved with apparent rate constant 0.0037 min −1 . The effect of scavengers study revealed that superoxide ions and holes were mainly responsible for DCF degradation. The regeneration study indicates that BiOCl-GO composite can be successfully recycled up to the five cycles. The study revealed the effectiveness of one pot hydrothermal method for the fabrication of BiOCl-GO composite.

Visible Light–Driven Advanced Oxidation Processes to Remove Emerging Contaminants from Water and Wastewater: a Review

“…The removal rate of DCF increased with increasing catalyst dose and pH, while it decreased with increasing initial pharmaceutical concentration. Similar results were obtained by Rashid et al ( 2020 ).…”

“…The persulfate can also react with an electron donor from the transition metal to form a single sulfate radical (Eq. ( 2)) (Karim et al 2020).…”

Bismuth Oxyhalide-Based Materials (BiOX: X = Cl, Br, I) and Their Application in Photoelectrocatalytic Degradation of Organic Pollutants in Water: A Review

“…Due to their hierarchical structures and large active areas, the Bi-C bonds increase the speed of electron mobility between the bands ( Hou et al, 2017 ). For example, Rashid et al (2020) used a simple hydrothermal method to synthesize a BiOCl/GO composite (GO: graphene oxide). As shown in Figure 4 , BiOCl is not active against visible light; however, by adding GO, the band-gap shifted towards 3.08 eV, which promote catalytic reactions in the medium even under sunlight irradiation.…”

Bismuth-Graphene Nanohybrids: Synthesis, Reaction Mechanisms, and Photocatalytic Applications—A Review

“…A photocatalyst, which can efficiently absorb the visible light to produce reactive species, is a condition for achieving fast photocatalytic disinfection [283]. Jamshaid et al [284] synthesized a BiOCl/GO composite and utilized it under visible light, full solar light, and UV photocatalytic degradation of diclofenac sodium (DCF) (Figure 12).…”