Facile precipitation synthesis of extraordinary visible‐light‐driven BiOXs photocatalyst.

Bismuth halide oxide with three halogen elements (P‐BiOXs) catalyst was prepared by a facile precipitation method at room temperature only for 30 min. Several measurement technologies were employed to characterise the structures and morphologies of the obtained samples. Coloured Rhodamine B (RhB), methyl orange (MO), methylene blue (MB) and colourless bisphenol A (BPA) were selected to evaluate the photocatalytic activity of the samples. The experimental results showed the P‐BiOXs thin nanoplates exhibited the most excellent photocatalytic activity among the prepared samples for the degradation of MO under visible light illumination. More importantly, the catalyst P‐BiOXs could effectively degradate RhB, MB and BPA. The P‐BiOXs catalyst displayed good photocatalytic stability by the recycling tests. The highly efficient visible light catalytic properties of P‐BiOXs could be due to the high specific surface area, enhanced light‐harvesting ability, the suitable bandgap energy and the lower recombination rate of the photogenerated electrons and holes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]