0D/2D Co3O4/TiO2 Z-Scheme heterojunction for boosted photocatalytic degradation and mechanism investigation

By Yuting Wang, Chengzhang Zhu, Gancheng Zuo, Yang Guo, Wei Xiao, Yuxuan Dai, Jijie Kong, Xiaoming Xu, Yuxuan Zhou, A. Xie and 2 more. 2020

363 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract The development of stable, efficient photocatalyst for environmental antibiotics degradation is great significant and remains a major challenge. Herein, zero dimensional Co3O4 nanodots are grown in situ onto two dimensional TiO2 nanosheets, successfully producing a Z-scheme heterojunction Co3O4/TiO2 photocatalyst for the photocatalytic degradation of enrofloxacin. The synthesized nanohybrid exhibits superior photodegradation performance (0.0269 min−1 for enrofloxacin) and excellent stability (four cycles). The matched energy bands allow the formation of the Z-scheme heterojunction, and the built-in electric field provides the reaction driving force. The formed Z-scheme heterojunction can simultaneously inhibit photoinduced electron-hole recombination, boost photoinduced charge carrier transfer, and produce more active electrons and holes, therefore generating more active species for eventual photocatalytic degradation. In addition, a the possible enrofloxacin degradation pathway was proposed based on simulated calculations and GC MS analysis. This work can inspire further design and construction of Z-scheme heterojunction photocatalysts.

Subfields: Materials Chemistry, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/34a2da8c4633dceb5f7188acd1a4d81fcd3886a9