Enhancing the Photocatalytic Performance for Norfloxacin Degradation by Fabricating S-Scheme ZnO/BiOCl Heterojunction

Construction of S-scheme heterojunctions can effectively limit the recombination of photogenerated e^- and h⁺, thus improving photocatalytic activity. Therefore, S-scheme ZnO/BiOCl (molar ratio = 1:2) n-n heterojunctions were synthesized via a hydrothermal-hydrolysis combined method in this study. The physical and chemical properties of the ZnO/BiOCl heterojunctions were characterized by XRD, XPS, SEM, TEM, DRS, N₂ adsorption-desorption and ESR. Additionally, the photoelectric performances of ZnO/BiOCl heterojunctions were investigated with TPR, M-S plot and EIS. The results show that photocatalytic degradation of NOR by ZnO/BiOCl reached to 94.4% under simulated sunlight, which was 3.7 and 1.6 times greater than that of ZnO and BiOCl, respectively. The enhanced photodegradation ability was attributed to the enhancement of the internal electric field between ZnO and BiOCl, facilitating the active separation of photogenerated electrons and holes. The radical capture experiments and ESR results illustrate that the contribution of reactive species was in descending order of ·OH > h⁺ > ·O₂^- and a possible mechanism for the photodegradation of NOR over S-scheme ZnO/BiOCl heterojunctions was proposed.