Photocatalytic degradation efficacy of Bi4Ti3O12 micro-scale platelets over methylene blue under visible light

〈001〉 textured Bi₄Ti₃O₁₂ platelets with micro scale size were synthesized by a facile molten salt method. The photocatalytic activities of the as-prepared samples were measured with the photodegradation of methylene blue at room temperature under visible light irradiation. The Bi₄Ti₃O₁₂ with the aspect ratio of 35 exhibited good absorption in the visible light region and the photodegradation against methylene blue was higher than that of anatase TiO₂ reference, showing that the high degree of preferred {001} facets on the plate surface benefits the electronic transmission. In addition, the layer-pervoskite structure facilitates the mobility of the photogenerated carriers and hampers their recombination. The above results indicated that the large specific surface area of the as-prepared samples could attribute to the presence of a number of oxygen vacancies and then lead to the good photo-electric property. This work proposed an alternative way to tailor the structure of micro-sized platelets to get excellent properties comparable to the nano materials.