Effect of carbon nanotubes loading on the photocatalytic activity of BiSI/BiOI photocatalyst

It is desirable to investigate a novel visible-light-driven heterostructure photocatalyst for wastewater treatment. In this paper, a composite made of BiOI, BiSI, and CNT was prepared by the hydrothermal method. The properties of the prepared samples were studied using BET, PL, XRD, FESEM, DRS and EIS. The photocatalytic reaction results manifest that BiSI/BiOI/CNT composite displayed strong visible-light absorption capacity, excellent stability, high efficiency for electron–hole separation and the excellent removal capacity. This enhancement is attributed to the large surface area, high absorption ability in the visible light region and good conductivity performance. According to the active species trapping experiments, the photocatalytic mechanism of degradation of dye using the synthesized nanocomposites was proposed. The present study demonstrates a profound photocatalytic degradation of Malachite green (MG) via a novel BiSI/BiOI/CNT heterostructure photocatalyst..

Keywords:

BiSI/BiOI/multi-walled carbon nanotube , Malachite green , visible-light-driven photocatalyst , wastewater purification