Enhancing photocatalytic activity on gas-phase heavy metal oxidation with self-assembled BiOI/BiOCl microflowers.

A one-pot synthetic approach to prepare self-assembled BiOI/BiOCl microflowers by a template-free coprecipitation method at room temperature has been developed. The physicochemical structure of BiOI/BiOCl microflowers were characterized using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), high resolution TEM (HRTEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The composition information and bonding energy structure of the BiOI/BiOCl microflowers were studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and high-resolution X-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) analysis and photoluminescence (PL) spectra.