Enhanced Visible-Light-Induced Photoactivity of Type-II CeO2/g-C3N4 Nanosheet toward Organic Pollutants Degradation

By Ran Ma, Sai Zhang, Lei Li, Pengcheng Gu, T. Wen, A. Khan, Shaojun Li, Bingfeng Li, Suhua Wang, Xiangke Wang. ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering, 2019

181 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Photodegradation has been considered as an efficient environmental remediation technology to eliminate organic pollutants from wastewater, and the calling for high-performance photocatalysts is endless. Herein, we developed an efficient solid-state thermolysis route for the mass production of type-II CeO₂/g-C₃N₄ nanosheet (CeO₂/CNNS) serving as efficient photocatalysts toward bisphenol A (BPA) degradation under visible light illumination. The microstructures, compositions, and optical properties of the obtained samples were characterized by multitechniques, and n–n heterojunction was verified to be perfectly formed in CeO₂/CNNS with an intimate contact interface. A total of 93.7% BPA was removed by the optimal CeO₂/CNNS composites after 80 min visible light irradiation, but only 65.0% and 14.4% of the BPA were removed by CNNS and CeO₂, respectively. It was mainly attributed to the matched energy levels of the CeO₂/CNNS heterostructure, which facilitated the migration and separation of photoinduced charge carriers. Combining trapping experiments and ESR analysis, the results indicated that holes (h⁺) and superoxide radicals (O₂•–) dominated the photodegradation reactions. As expected, the CeO₂/CNNS composites still remained stable up to the sixth cycling test, implying the possible application for actual wastewater treatment. This work highlighted the mechanism of CeO₂/CNNS composites and gained a deeper insight for the fabrication of heterojunction catalysts and their application in environmental pollution management.

Subfields: Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Materials Chemistry, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c270b9bf22b684c738d55dc52d9692fc52d93402

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In Materials Chemistry

1. B. Gao
2. M. Naushad
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In Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

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Citations in the corpus

• Facile ball-milling synthesis of CeO2/g-C3N4 Z-scheme heterojunction for synergistic adsorption and photodegradation of methylene blue: Characteristics, kinetics, models, and mechanisms (2020, methodology): “synthesized a type-II CeO2/g-C3N4 nanosheet heterojunction via a solid-state thermolysis method, showing superior photocatalytic performances compared with individual g-C3N4 and CeO2 [25].”