Tunable oxygen vacancies facilitated removal of PFOA and RhB over BiOCl prepared with alcohol ether sulphate

In this study, surfactant sodium alcohol ether sulphate (AES) was added into the solvothermal preparation system of BiOCl to decrease the surface energies of the (0 1 0) facets during the crystallization process. BiOCl samples were synthesized by controlling the amount of AES. BiOCl samples prepared with the assistance of AES have a smaller size, higher oxygen vacancies (OVs) and photogenerated electron and hole pairs (e-/h+) separation efficiency than the reference BiOCl (R-B). The content of OVs can be facilely controlled by using the different amount of AES. When the weight ratio of AES/BiOCl is 5%, the BiOCl prepared (5% AB) has suitable OVs content to hoist the separation of photoinduced charge, displaying the highest photocatalytic activity. Photocatalytic degradation ability of the 5% AB sample toward destruction of Rhodamine B (RhB) under visible light is 4.4 times of that of R-B, and the degradation rate constant and defluorination rate of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) over 5% AB under UV light for 2 h is 2.9 times and 1.5 times of that over R-B, respectively. Given the experimental observations, enhancement mechanism in photocatalytic property was proposed.