Doping and facet effects synergistically mediated interfacial reaction mechanism and selectivity in photocatalytic NO abatement.

The surface atomic coordination and arrangement largely determine photocatalytic properties. Whereas, the intrinsic impact of surface microstructures on the reaction mechanism and pathway is still unclear. Herein, via constructing N-doped BiOCO photocatalysts with diverse exposed facets, (1 1 0) and (0 0 1) facet, we testify that the pivotal roles of crystal facet and doping effect on the intermediate production and reactivity for photocatalytic nitric oxide (NO) abatement. The photoreactivity of N-doped BiOCO is documented to be higher than that of the pure samples because of the enhanced light absorption and charge transfer. Further in situ probing experiments and theoretical calculations verify that the unique adsorption patterns and activated intermediates on the (1 1 0) facet facilitate the formation of final products and inhibit the generation of toxic NO by-product in terms of thermodynamics. More importantly, we found that the selective and nonselective oxidation processes are emerged over (1 1 0) and (0 0 1) facets of BiOCO, respectively.