Paper
RSC Advances
1
0 Y. Bi, S. Ouyang, N. Umezawa, J. Cao and J. Ye, J. Am. Chem.
Soc., 2011, 133, 6490–6492.
4
. Conclusions
Single crystalline nanosheets of BiOI with either predominantly 11 J. Miao and B. Liu, RSC Adv., 2013, 3, 1222–1226.
001}- or {110}-exposed facets were obtained by varying the pH 12 H. Zhang, L. Liu and Z. Zhou, RSC Adv., 2012, 2, 9224–9229.
during hydrothermal synthesis. Under acidic conditions (pH 13 J. Henle, P. Simon, A. Frenzel, S. Scholz and S. Kaskel, Chem.
.3–4), the {001} facets were preferentially formed while BiOI
Mater., 2007, 19, 366–373.
with {110} dominant facets was formed at pH 5 to 8. The surface 14 Z. Liu, W. Xu, J. Fang, X. Xu, S. Wu, X. Zhu and Z. Chen, Appl.
area of BiOI increased with increasing synthesis pH due to the
Surf. Sci., 2012, 259, 441–447.
formation of smaller and thinner nanosheets. The intrinsic 15 P. Q. Wang, Y. Bai, J. Y. Liu, Z. Fan and Y. Q. Hu, Micro Nano
photoactivity for p-cresol degradation under visible light irra-
Lett., 2013, 8, 99–101.
diation of the {001}-facetted BiOI was about twice that of BiOI 16 Y. Wang, K. Deng and L. Zhang, J. Phys. Chem. C, 2011, 115,
with {110} exposed facets when compared on unit surface area.
14300–14308.
Calcination of the {110}-facetted BiOI led to the replacement of 17 X. Chang, J. Huang, Q. Tan, M. Wang, G. Ji, S. Deng and
some of the iodine by oxygen. The heterojunctioned Bi
G. Yu, Catal. Commun., 2009, 10, 1957–1961.
composites formed by this process showed better photocatalytic 18 R. Hao, X. Xiao, X. Zuo, J. Nan and W. Zhang, J. Hazard.
activity than BiOI. A Bi O I /a-Bi O I composite had the highest
Mater., 2012, 209–210, 137–145.
photocatalytic activity for p-cresol and other phenolic 19 X. Wang, S. Yang, H. Li, W. Zhao, C. Sun and H. He, RSC Adv.,
compounds. Experiments with various scavengers and under
2014, 4, 42530–42537.
aerobic and anaerobic conditions point to holes as the species 20 X. Xiao and W. Zhang, J. Mater. Chem., 2010, 20, 5866–5870.
{
2
x y z
O I
7
9 3
5 7
responsible for most of the photodegradation.
21 J. Liu, H. Li, N. Du, S. Song and W. Hou, RSC Adv., 2014, 4,
1393–31399.
2 L. Ye, L. Tian, T. Peng and L. Zan, J. Mater. Chem., 2011, 21,
2479–12484.
3 E. Keller and V. Kr ¨a mer, Acta Crystallogr., Sect. C: Cryst.
Struct. Commun., 2007, C63, i109–i111.
3
2
2
2
2
2
2
Acknowledgements
1
Financial support from the National Research Foundation and
the Economic Development Board (SPORE, COY-15-EWI-
RCFSA/N197-1) for a research assistantship for A. Han and
a research scholarship for J. Sun is gratefully acknowledged.
The work is supported by the Ministry of Education ARC Tier 1
grants R-143-000-550-112 and R-143-000-603-112.
4 P. Rittner and H. Oppermann, Z. Anorg. Allg. Chem., 1992,
617, 131–135.
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7 U. Eggenweiler, J. Ketterer, E. Keller and V. Kr ¨a mer, Z.
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