Study on the regulation of BiOCl and its mechanism of photocatalytic degradation of toluene

The use of green photocatalytic technology to remove low-concentration organic waste gas has piqued the interest of many people in recent years, and it is expected to be used to solve the problem of disorganized emission of low-concentration waste gas on the factory floor due to its wide range of applications and high catalytic efficiency. To this end, this paper firstly explores and simulates the unorganized emission scenario of toluene from low-concentration organic waste gas in the factory floor; secondly, it investigates the effect of BiOCl photocatalysts obtained by crystal surface modulation and morphology modulation on the performance of photocatalytic degradation of toluene, and in this process, the mechanism of photocatalytic degradation of toluene is explored by combining material characterization analysis and theoretical analysis. Finally, it was concluded as follows: the BiOCl −010 sample prepared by crystal surface modulation was the optimal catalyst with 94.8% degradation rate of toluene in 120 min. The cyclic experiments and characterization analysis means proved that the catalytic activity of the reacted sample was slightly enhanced while maintaining stability, attributed to the generation of oxygen vacancies. Oxygen vacancies, as defects, can become the center for capturing photogenerated electrons and improve the separation efficiency of photogenerated electrons and holes, thus enhancing the photocatalytic activity. Combined with the radical capture experiments and GC/MS analysis, the main pathway of toluene degradation in the course of photocatalytic reaction was deduced, i.e., toluene → benzene → ring-opening products → short chain-like compounds → carbon dioxide + water.