Design and preparation of bismuth oxyhalide based nanomaterials

Abstract

[EN]Bismuth oxyhalides, namely BiOX (X = Cl, Br, I), with tunable band gaps have recently emerged as potentially more effective alternative in the photocatalytic field to the traditional TiO2 based photocatalysts due to the interesting structure dependent photocatalytic performance that arises from their distinctive layered structure. Nevertheless, BiOX still give rise to photogenerated carriers easy to recombine. Hence, several strategies have been adopted to enhance their photoactivity, and it will be discussed in the literature review of this work.

Moreover, new BiOX based materials have been prepared by heterojunction of BiOX and amino- functionalized multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs-Tren), and characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD)

and Scanning electronic microscopy (SEM). The results show that the obtained MWCNTs-Tren/BiOX composites possess a good hybridization between BiOX and a suitable amount of MWCNTs-Tren, which could increase the photocatalytic activity of Bismuth oxyhalides.