Enhanced photocatalytic and photoelectrochemical activities of reduced TiO2-x/BiOCl heterojunctions

A key issue to design highly efficient photoelectrodes for hydrogen production is how to prohibit the rapid carrier recombination. In order to use the visible light and reduce the recombination of electrons and holes, reduced TiO2-x/BiOCl heterojunctions are successfully synthesized and the photoelectrodes are assembled in this work. The effects of various Bi/Ti molar ratios on the structural, morphological, optical, photoelectrochemical and photocatalytic activities of the resultant samples are investigated systematically. The TiO2-x nanoparticles contain Ti3+, Ti2+, and oxygen vacancies (Ov), while the BiOCl nanosheets exposed {001} facet. Ultraviolet visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV vis DRS) results indicate that the existence of Ti3+, Ti2+ and Ov expand the light-response range. Linear scan voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy results indicate that more efficient electron transportation is presented in the heterojunctions with the appropriate Bi/Ti molar ratio. Consequently, the reduced TiO2-x/BiOCl heterojunction with the most appropriate Bi/Ti molar ratio exhibits a high photocurrent density of 0.755 mA cm(-2) with photoconversion efficiency up to 0.634%, 10.5 and 22.6 times larger than that of pure TiO2 and BiOCl. Furthermore, this heterojunction exhibit 48.38 and 12.54 times enhancement for the visible-light decomposition of rhodamine B compared with pure TiO2 and BiOCl. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V.