Multifunctional layered bismuth oxychloride/amorphous antimony oxide hetero-hybrids as superior photocatalyst and potassium ion storage materials

In this work, a multifunctional BiOCl/amorphous antimony oxide (AAO) hetero-hybrid with the molar ratio of Bi³⁺/Sb³⁺ in 1/3 (1-BOC/3-AAO) is successfully developed by the scalable ball-milling strategy and demonstrates an exceptional visible light photocatalytic degradation performance of RhB and superior anodic potassium ion storage performance for potassium ion batteries over other reported BOC materials, benefitted from the large specific surface area, narrow band gap, improved utilization of visible light, effectively suppressed recombination and highly enhanced transfer efficiency of the photogenerated charge carriers of the hetero-hybrid. Under the light irradiation of a 300 W xenon lamp without and with an optical filter (≥ 420 nm), almost 100.0% RhB in the aqueous solution can be degraded after 20 mins. At the same time, the as-prepared 1-BOC/3-AAO also demonstrate a superior potassium ion storage over other reported BOC-based materials. The potassium half-cell assembled with as-prepared 1-BOC/3-AAO as working electrodes can deliver an initial charge capacity of 505.3 and 395.9 mAhg⁻¹ at the current density of 100 and 500 mAg⁻¹, meanwhile, maintains 427.7 after 500 cycles at 100 mAg⁻¹and 316.9 mAhg⁻¹ after 800 cycles at 500 mAg⁻¹, respectively. Therefore, BOC/AAO hetero-hybrids will be a promising candidate commercial catalyst for degradation of organic pollutes within the industrial waste water and promising high performance anode materials for potassium ion batteries.