Fabricating erythrocyte-like BiOI/Bi₂WO₆ heterostructures with enhancing the visible-light photocatalytic performance

In this paper, the erythrocyte-like Bi₂WO₆ structures were firstly synthesized and then were used as template, loading BiOI nanosheets on it. Then the erythrocyte-like BiOI/Bi₂WO₆ heterostructures were synthesized. Meantime, BiOI/Bi₂WO₆ heterostructures with different ratio of I/W were synthesized. The crystalline, morphology, chemical composition, and optical properties of BiOI/Bi₂WO₆ heterostructures were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersion X-ray spectrum (EDX), UV-visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy analysis (DRS), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). In addition, the photocatalytic properties of degrading tetracycline (TC) were studied. The photocatalytic performance of erythrocyte-like BiOI/Bi₂WO₆ heterostructures with different BiOI content under visible-light irradiation showed that the erythrocyte-like BiOI/Bi₂WO₆ heterostructures were better than pure Bi₂WO₆. By optimizing the ratio of I/W, BWI-0.5 was almost completely degraded TC, and the photocatalytic mechanism of BiOI/Bi₂WO₆ has been proposed. Generally speaking, the erythrocyte-like BiOI/Bi₂WO₆ heterostructures greatly improved the photocatalytic performance.