Does noble metal modification improve the photocatalytic activity of BiOCl?

Noble metal-surface-deposited BiOCl photocatalysts were prepared through photo-deposition and used for photodecomposition of Rhodamine B (RhB). The received materials were characterised using X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS), UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV–vis DRS), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) to understand the influence of surface deposited noble metals. The results showed that the noble metal species on the surface of BiOCl are in metallic state, which also brought about enhanced light absorption in broad UV–vis region due to plasmonic effects induced by the surface-deposited noble metal species. All the samples showed good activity in photodecomposition of RhB under UV-light irradiation, but only Ag/BiOCl was more active than bulk BiOCl. The mechanism of the different reactivity of these noble-metal modified BiOCl was tentatively proposed based on the band structure and the interactions between noble metals and the BiOCl.