Photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants using surfactant-free hydrothermally prepared flower-like BiOBr hierarchical structures under visible light irradiation

Flower-like BiOBr hierarchical structures were successfully prepared via a facile hydrothermal route in the absence of any surfactants. Various characterization tests were carried out to analyze the as-prepared BiOBr samples. By utilizing the flower-like BiOBr as photocatalysts, enhanced photocatalytic performance on the sunset yellow degradation was observed in comparison with the BiOBr nanosheets and commercial TiO₂. The photocatalytic enhancement was ascribed to the unique hierarchical porous surface structure with good crystallinity and optical properties, which could improve the electron-hole pairs separation and led to high yield of reactive oxygen species for photocatalytic reaction. Other organic pollutants such as bisphenol A and methylparaben were also successfully degraded over flower-like BiOBr under similar experimental conditions. (paper)