Design of core-shelled g-C3N4@ZIF-8 photocatalyst with enhanced tetracycline adsorption for boosting photocatalytic degradation

By Xin Yuan, Senlin Qu, Xiaoyan Huang, Xiaogang Xue, C. Yuan, S. Wang, L. Wei, P. Cai. Chemical Engineering Journal, 2021

265 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Confining active species and intermediates in a limited spatial is critical to driving pollutant transformation involving successive reactions for boosting degradation. Herein, core–shell g-C3N4@ZIF-8 were prepared by exfoliating-wrapping of g-C3N4 via ZIF-8 in-situ growth. XRD, SEM, TEM, and EDX mapping demonstrate the inclusion of curled g-C3N4 sheets in ZIF-8. UV–vis, PL, FTIR, and XPS confirm the coordination of TC with Zn of ZIF-8. Steady-transient PL, EIS and transient photocurrent response indicate that the combination of two materials favors the carriers’ separation and transfer. Further band analysis suggests that interfacial band bending of g-C3N4 promotes the separation of electron-hole and electron diffusion toward ZIF-8. As result, the optimized g-C3N4@ZIF-8 exhibits a superior TC degradation rate constant (k = 0.068 min−1), 4.8 times higher than that of g-C3N4 (k = 0.014 min−1), and enhanced TC removal rate of 87.6% higher than g-C3N4 (58.6%). Also, the optimized material shows superior degradation rate and removal efficacy in RhB (99.3%) and Cr (VI) (96.6%) in surface water. The investigations on active species and degradation routes (EPR, LC-MS) reveal that synergetic effects of ZIF-8 confined g-C3N4 facilitate the formation of oxygen radicals ( O2−) and their transformation toward singlet oxygen (1O2) for boosting TC degradation.

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

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/351e0fcd485f1801e57d54df070b76ea6ac4658e