LAUSR

Abstract Novel ternary BiOCl/TiO2/clinoptilolite nanocomposites with highly-enhanced photocatalytic activity under visible light were prepared by a facile hydrothermal route combining with a water bath precipitation procedure. The obtained samples were characterized by means of XRD, SEM, TEM, TG-DSC, N2 adsorption-desorption, XPS, FTIR, and UV-vis DRS in detail. In the nanocomposites, bismuth oxychloride nanosheets (BNSs) and titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TNPs) were uniformly dispersed on the surface of flake-like clinoptilolite. Sodium isopropyl xanthate (SIPX) was selected as the target contaminant to estimate the photocatalysis of the obtained nanocomposites. Obviously, BiOCl/TiO2/clinoptilolite photocatalyst showed more excellent adsorption and degradation performance for SIPX than single TiO2 or BiOCl as well as their binary composites with clinoptilolite. Given that the characterization analysis and experimental results, the highly-enhanced photocatalytic activity was mainly attributed to the effective construction of BiOCl/TiO2 heterojunction and the excellent adsorption ability of clinoptilolite in BiOCl/TiO2/clinoptilolite nanocomposites. Radical scavenger tests demonstrated that superoxide radical anions ( · O 2 - ) and photogenerated holes (h+) were the dominant active species in the reaction system. It is proposed that such novel nanocomposites could be used as efficient photocatalysts for the complete degradation of xanthates under visible light.