Construction of Cu3P-ZnSnO3-g-C3N4 p-n-n heterojunction with multiple built-in electric fields for effectively boosting visible-light photocatalytic degradation of broad-spectrum antibiotics

By F. Guo, Xiliu Huang, Zhihao Chen, Longwen Cao, Xiaofang Cheng, Lizhuang Chen, Wei‐long Shi. 2021

172 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract The design of advanced semiconductor photocatalysts is an effective approach to promote environmental remediation. The p-n-n heterojunction photocatalyst has a strong built-in electric field in the photocatalytic reaction, which provides an effective space for the separation of photo-generated carriers, thereby achieving high-efficient photocatalytic activity. Herein, a facile solvothermal method was developed to manufacture a unique Cu3P-ZSO-CN p-n-n heterojunction photocatalyst for the photodegradation of broad-spectrum antibiotics under visible light irradiation. Benefiting from the novel p-n-n heterojunction structure, the obtained 5% Cu3P-ZSO-CN photocatalyst exhibits the highest degradation efficiency, and the degradation rates for tetracycline (TC), oxytetracycline (OTC), chlortetracycline (CTC) and ciprofloxacin (CIP) are assigned to 98.45%, 54.71%, 63.52% and 87.57%, respectively. Furthermore, based on the detection of intermediate products via liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS), the possible photodegradation pathway of TC was analyzed. Finally, the possible Cu3P-ZSO-CN p-n-n heterojunction photocatalytic reaction mechanism was revealed in detail by the examination of optical properties and capturing experiments of active species. This work provides a new perspective for the application of p-n-n heterojunction photocatalysts in environmental remediation.

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

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b0012f2eef7fa0d4e2eca17381684358912f9c43