Construction of 2D/2D Bi₁₂O₁₇Cl₂/Zn-HMT Z-scheme heterojunction for efficient photocatalytic tetracycline hydrochloride degradation and Cr(Ⅵ) reduction

Although photocatalysis technology is one of prospective method attributing to enormous potentials to environment issues, searching high-efficiency and stable photocatalysts remains the enormous challenges. In this work, we successfully constructed a novel 2D/2D Z-scheme heterostructure photocatalyst (BMT) in composed of Zn(Ⅱ)-hexamethylenetetramine (Zn-HMT) and Bi₁₂O₁₇Cl₂ forming a 2D sheet-sheet stacking structure. The 2D/2D Z-scheme Bi₁₂O₁₇Cl₂/Zn-HMT with intimate face-to-face contact inherits unique merits including large contact surface, abundant exposed active sites and shortened transmission paths of electrons, which would promote the separation of charges and the transmission efficiency of electrons in photocatalytic reaction. Attributing to these superiorities, the sample of 0.75-BMT with optimal proportion shows admirable photocatalytic performance for the photocatalytic tetracycline hydrochloride (TC-HCl, k₁ =1.0 h⁻¹) degradation and hexavalent chromium (Cr (Ⅵ), k₂ = 0.43 h⁻¹) reduction, which are about 2.6 and 4.3 times of pristine Zn-HMT, respectively. This work provides inventive inspiration for constructing a novel 2D/2D Z-scheme photocatalyst as the effect way to handle the environmental pollution issues.