Synthesis and photocatalytic behaviour of 3D flowerlike bismuth oxide formate architectures

By virtue of structural understanding, bismuth oxide formate (BiOCOOH) was first put forward to be a novel photocatalyst candidate. 3D flowerlike architectures have been successfully synthesized through a facile and economical route, which was free from any surfactant and template. The product was characterized by the study of X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and electron diffraction (ED), and the crystal structure of BiOCOOH was revealed. Besides, the formation mechanism of the BiOCOOH flowerlike architectures was also discussed. From the results of photocatalytic tests, the synthesized BiOCOOH architectures exhibited excellent photocatalytic activity for rhodamine-B (RhB) degradation under the simulated solar light irradiation. Therefore, this novel 3D flowerlike BiOCOOH architectures show significance of potential application in environment protection problems.