A facile synthesis of bismuth oxychloride-graphene oxide composite for visible light photocatalysis of aqueous diclofenac sodium

In this study, bismuth oxychloride/graphene oxide (BiOCl-GO) composite was fabricated by facile one pot hydrothermal method. The pure BiOCl and BiOCl-GO composite was characterized by X-ray diffraction, Transmission electron microscopy X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and UV–Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. The synthesized composite was then assessed for photocatalytic degradation of diclofenac sodium (DCF) in visible as well as direct solar light and UV irradiation. Results indicated that the photocatalytic removal efficiency of DCF was significantly affected by dose of catalysts, pH value and source of light. The results reveled that degradation efficiency of BiOCl-GO for DCF reduced from 100 to 34.4% with the increases in DCF initial concentration from 5 mg L⁻¹ to 25 mg L⁻¹. The solar light degradation of DCF using BiOCl-GO was achieved with apparent rate constant 0.0037 min⁻¹. The effect of scavengers study revealed that superoxide ions and holes were mainly responsible for DCF degradation. The regeneration study indicates that BiOCl-GO composite can be successfully recycled up to the five cycles. The study revealed the effectiveness of one pot hydrothermal method for the fabrication of BiOCl-GO composite.