A facile synthesis of TiO2/BiOCl and TiO2/BiOCl/La2O3 heterostructure photocatalyst for enhanced charge separation efficiency with improved UV-light catalytic activity towards Rhodamine B and Reactive Yellow 86

[Display omitted] •TiO2/BiOCl/La2O3 NCs are synthesized by solid-state powder grind approach.•High photocatalytic activity was observed for TiO2/BiOCl/La2O3 NCs material.•Degradation percentage was achieved as 95% and 92% for RhB and RY 86 dyes.•Outstanding performance of dye degradation can be used for water purification. A novel three-step synthesis approach of TiO2/BiOCl/La2O3 heterostructures was successfully prepared by hydrothermal, co-precipitation and solid-state reaction for enhances the photocatalytic activity through the degradation of Rhodamine B (RhB) and Reactive Yellow 86 (RY 86) organic dyes under UV-light illumination. The as-prepared photocatalysts were studied by using various physicochemical characterization tools like Powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), UV–visible diffused reflectance spectroscopy (UV–Vis DRS), and Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) with EDX color mapping. The photocatalytic results were revealed TiO2/BiOCl and TiO2/BiOCl/La2O3 nanocatalyst effectively degrade RhB and RY 86 dyes molecules under UV light illumination within 120 min irradiation compare to pure TiO2. This prominent enhancement of UV-light photocatalytic activity can be ascribed to the efficient separation of photogenerated charge carriers by the effective construction of TiO2/BiOCl/La2O3 heterojunction.