Cellulose nanofibrils enable flower-like BiOCl for high-performance photocatalysis under visible-light irradiation.

Graphical abstract Highlights • Flower-like BOC was successfully prepared employing CNFs as regulator. • The CBOC-5 exhibited superior photocatalytic activity and excellent stability. • CNFs played crucial roles to tune morphology, size and hydrophilic surface of BiOCl. • This study provided a novel and green method to use visible light for BiOCl. Abstract Control the photocatalytic activity by texturing morphology and surface property is the fundamental and efficient process for the advanced applications of semiconductors. In this work, high-performance flower-like BiOCl (BOC) nanomaterials were fabricated employing sustainable cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs) as regulator through a facile one-pot hydrothermal method. The CNFs doped BiOCl (CBOC) formed flower-like morphology and the size was decreased. Ascribing to the enhanced photosensitization and photocatalysis, RhB could be totally degraded by CBOC-5 (5% of CNFs) within 16 min under visible light irradiation, exhibiting outstanding degradation efficiency. The roles of adsorption, photosensitization and photocatalysis of CBOC-5 to RhB and tetracycline (TC) were comprehensively studied. The O 2 − and holes were determined to be the active species during the RhB degradation in the presence of CBOC-5 under visible light irradiation and CBOC-5 showed excellent stability after 5 times repeated use. The crucial role of CNFs for the improved photocatalytic activity was mainly attributed to forming flower-like morphology, reducing the size of BOC and enhancing the hydrophilic surface, as a result, the absorption of visible light, migration of electron and the interaction of CBOC-5 with RhB were promoted remarkably, which enhanced both photosensitization and photocatalytic activity significantly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]