Room‐Temperature Synthesis and Enhanced Photocatalytic Performance of BiOCl Microsphere

Abstract Hierarchical BiOCl microspheres assembled from nanosheets with predominated (110) facets were facilely fabricated by precipitation at room temperature and characterized systematically. The effects of the solvents, chlorine precursors and reaction time on the growth of the BiOCl microspheres have been investigated in detail. Rhodamine B (RhB) was selected to evaluate the photocatalytic activity of the as‐obtained samples under visible‐light irradiation, and the results revealed that the BiOCl microspheres synthesized with WCl 6 exhibited superior RhB removal efficiency through a photosensitization process, and the degradation efficiency was 99% within 25 min and was still kept over 97% after five runs. The enhanced photocatalytic activities were mainly attributed to their hierarchical structure, high specific surface area as well as more exposed (110) facet. The superoxide radicals (•O 2 − ) were demonstrated to be the main active species in the photodegradation process. Additionally, photocatalysis mechanism was proposed based on experimental results.