Room Temperature Synthesis and Photocatalytic Activity of Magnetically Recoverable Fe3O4/BiOCl Nanocomposite Photocatalysts

Magnetically recoverable Fe₃O₄/BiOCl nanocomposite photocatalysts were fabricated by a simple chemical coprecipitation method at room temperature. The amount of Fe₃O₄ incorporated into BiOCl was varied from 0 to 20 wt%. The as-synthesized samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectroscopy, UV–Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, and vibrating sample magnetometer. The obtained results show that the as-synthesized samples mainly contain both crystalline phases (Fe₃O₄ and BiOCl) and are composed of flower-like nanostructures. Compared to UV light-responsive BiOCl, all the nanocomposite photocatalysts show a strong light absorbance in the range of 250–800 nm, demonstrating that the Fe₃O₄/BiOCl nanocomposites can respond to visible as well as UV light. Moreover, visible light absorbance was increased with the increase in the Fe₃O₄ amount in the composite. The photocatalytic activity of nanocomposite photocatalysts was evaluated by the photodegradation of Rhodamine B (RhB) over the samples under visible light irradiation. The 10 wt% Fe₃O₄/BiOCl nanocomposite photocatalyst shows the highest photocatalytic efficiency among the samples. The Fe₃O₄/BiOCl nanocomposite photocatalyst was stable under visible light irradiation to efficiently degrade RhB molecules after five cycles and could be easily recovered with a magnet after each cycle.