Facile Insights into Hydrothermal Synthesis of Ultrathin Bi4NbO8Cl Nanosheets for Efficient CO2 Photoreduction

Developing novel two-dimensional photocatalysis is an excellent strategy for high-efficiency CO2 photoreduction. Herein, for the first time, we demonstrate a facile hydrothermal synthesis method to construct ultrathin Bi4NbO8Cl nanosheets using tartaric acid as a complexing agent, which can restrain the speed of nucleation. The ultrathin Bi4NbO8Cl nanosheets exhibit excellent catalytic activity of CO and CH4 production (10.84 and 4.45 mu mol g(-1) h(-1)), which are up to 1.9 and 1.4 times higher than those of the bulk Bi4NbO8Cl, respectively. Photoelectric experiments and mechanism analysis systematically show that the as-obtained enhanced performance should be attributed to the formation of ultrathin Bi4NbO8Cl nanosheets, and charge separation and migration are significantly boosted. Therefore, this ultrathin Bi4NbO8Cl structure has provided new insights into the controllable preparation of ultrathin nanosheet photocatalysts to effectively improve the catalytic performance.