Preparation and Visible Light Photocatalytic Performance of BiOBr/Ti₃C₂ Composite Photocatalyst with Highly Exposed (001) Facets

Abstract

BiOBr/Ti3C2 composite photocatalyst with highly exposed (001) facets was synthesized by hydrolysis method. Different instruments were employed to characterize the samples. The visible light photocatalytic performance of different samples were evaluated by using Rhodamine B as the target pollutant. The results show that the degradation efficiency of Rhodamine B reaches 97.1% within 60 min over BiOBr/Ti3C2 (20.0wt% Ti3C2 addidion) composite photocatalyst, which is 34.7% higher than that of BiOBr. With the introduction of layered Ti3C2, the interface between BiOBr and Ti3C2 forms the Schottky junction energy barrier, which produces effective electron traps to inhibit the combination of photogenic electron-hole pairs, and greatly improves the visible light photocatalytic activity of BiOBr. After 5 cycles, the degradation efficiency of BiOBr/Ti3C2 composite photocatalyst remains at 91.0%, showing the reliable stability. The active species capture experiment shows that superoxide radical (• O2-) is the main active species in the photocatalytic degradation of Rhodamine B, and a possible photocatalytic mechanism is proposed accordingly.