Synthesis of Hierarchical (BiO)2CO3 Nanosheets Microspheres toward Efficient Photocatalystic Reduction of CO2 into CO

In this paper, hierarchical (BiO)(2)CO3 nanosheets microspheres were synthesized with dry ice as carbon source, and characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscope (SEM), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectra (DRS). The photocatalytic results showed that (BiO)(2)CO3 display much higher photocatalytic activity than BiOCI and TiO2 for photocatalystic reduction of CO2 under UV-visible light. The photocatalytic mechanism study revealled that (BiO)(2)CO3 display better separation efficiency of photoinduced charge carriers due to the large interlayer spacing (1.3675 nm). (C) 2015 Published by Elsevier B.V.