Pt nanoparticles mediated Bi12O17Cl2 nanosheets for enhanced organic pollutants photodegradation: Boosting kinetics and molecular oxygen activation

Developing photocatalysts with broad spectral response and high photogenerated carriers’ separation efficiency has received significant attention in recent years. In this work, the Pt nanoparticles (NPs) loaded Bi12O17Cl2 nanosheets composites (Pt/Bi12O17Cl2) were synthesized by a facile photoreduction method. The Pt NPs can serve as electron capture trap, accelerating charge transfer and boosting molecular oxygen activation, enhancing the photodegradation performance of rhodamine B (RhB) and ciprofloxacin (CIP). The prepared Pt/Bi12O17Cl2-2 exhibits the optimized photocatalytic removal constants for RhB and CIP under visible light irradiation, which is 6.36 and 2.97 times compared with that of pristine Bi12O17Cl2, respectively. Furthermore, the intermediates and possible degradation pathways for RhB and CIP were deduced based on liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) analysis. Finally, the photodegradation mechanism was proposed based on capture experiments. This study affords a promising approach for enhancing the molecular oxygen activation performance of photocatalysts.