Sunlight-assisted photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants using BiOCl/SnO2 Nanocomposites

Herein we report a simple and cost effective solution combustion synthesis of BiOCl/SnO₂ nanocomposites. The structural, textural, and optical properties of BiOCl/SnO₂ nanocomposites were investigated by various analytical techniques such as powder XRD, SEM, TEM, UV–vis DRS, N₂ adsorption study, photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy, and electrochemical impendence spectroscopy (EIS). Our results reveal that the BiOCl nanoflakes have good homogeneity with amorphous SnO₂ that form the heterojunction between them. The efficiency of the BiOCl/SnO₂ nanocomposites was tested for the degradation of Rhodamine B in the presence of sunlight. The BiOCl/SnO₂ heterojunction nanocomposites show high photocatalytic activity compared to individual BiOCl and SnO₂ catalyst, which may be due to the supressed recombination of photogenerated electron–hole pairs, which facilitate the charge separation due to electron transfer across the interface of the two compounds. We believe that BiOCl/SnO₂ nanocomposites exhibit superior photocatalytic activity due to the well-alloyed interface and reduced the charge transfer resistance which promoted light absorption in the visible region.