High-efficient synergy of piezocatalysis and photocatalysis in bismuth oxychloride nanomaterial for dye decomposition

In this work, it is found that the hydrothermally-synthesized bismuth oxychloride can behave both the piezocatalysis and photocatalysis for the Rhodamine B dye decomposition. ∼99% decomposition efficiency is achieved after both vibrating and lighting the Rhodamine B dye solution for ∼96 min with the addition of bismuth oxychloride catalyst, while the ∼72% and ∼26% decomposition efficiencies are obtained for only photocatalysis or only piezocatalysis respectively. In bi-catalysis, the mechanical strain produced due to vibration will directly provide an electric field that will increase the separation between the photo-induced electron-hole pairs, yielding to the enhanced decomposition performance of bi-catalysis. There is no significant change in the bi-catalytic performance of bismuth oxychloride nanomaterial observed after being recycled four times. Bismuth oxychloride catalyst is potential for the bi-catalytic decomposition treatment of wastewater through harvesting both the environmental vibration energy and light energy.