Room-temperature solid-state synthesis of BiOCl hierarchical microspheres with nanoplates

• BiOCl materials have been synthesized by a room-temperature solid-state reaction.
• The BiOCl microspheres exhibit excellent photocatalytic activity.
• The simple synthetic way can be extended to synthesize other layered materials.

The hierarchical BiOCl nanoplates and BiOCl microspheres have been successfully fabricated via a room-temperature solid-state chemical method. It is notable that the polyethylene glycol 400 played an important role for the synthesis of hierarchical BiOCl microspheres, which are assembled by numerous nanoplates with a thickness about 29 nm. Photocatalytic tests showed that the hierarchical BiOCl microspheres exhibit enhanced photocatalytic activity than BiOCl nanoplates under both UV and visible light in degradation of rhodamine B, mainly owing to its novel structure with enlarged specific surface area, enhanced adsorption capacity and exposed {110} faces.

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