Internal Electric Field Facilitates Facet-Dependent Photocatalytic Cl<sup>–</sup> Utilization on BiOCl in High-Salinity Wastewater for Ammonium Removal
Yuanyi Zhou, Zhaofen Xu, Lingfang Tang, Junhao Qin, Gang Lu, Haojie Dong, Zhenfeng Bian, Mingshan Zhu
Abstract
High Cl – concentration in saline wastewater (e.g., landfill leachate) limits wastewater purification. Catalytic Cl – conversion into reactive chlorine species (RCS) arises as a sustainable strategy, making the salinity profitable for efficient wastewater treatment. Herein, aiming to reveal the structure–property relationship in Cl – utilization, bismuth oxychloride (BiOCl) photocatalysts with coexposed {001} and {110} facets are synthesized. With an increasing {001} ratio, the RCS production efficiency increases from 75.64 to 96.89 μg L –1 min –1 . Mechanism investigation demonstrates the fast release of lattice Cl – as an RCS and the compensation of ambient Cl – . Correlation analysis between the internal electric field (IEF, parallel to [001]) and normalized efficiency on {110} ( k RCS / S {110}, perpendicular to [001]) displays a coefficient of 0.86, validating that the promoted carrier dynamics eventually affects Cl – conversion on the open layered structure. The BiOCl photocatalyst is well behaved in ammonium (NH 4 + -N) degradation ranging from 20 to 800 mg N L –1 with different chlorinity (3–12 g L –1 NaCl). The sustainable Cl – conversion into RCS also realizes 85.4% of NH 4 + -N removal in the treatment of realistic landfill leachate (662 mg of N L –1 NH 4 + -N). The structure–property relationship provides insights into the design of efficient catalysts for environment remediation using ambient Cl – .