Abstract
Photo-Fenton degradation of pollutants in wastewater is an ideal choice for large scale practical applications. Herein, two-dimensional (2D) in-plane CuS/Bi2WO6 p-n heterostructures have been successfully constructed by an in situ assembly strategy and characterized using XRD, XPS, SEM/TEM, EDX, UV-Vis-DRS, PL, TR-PL, ESR, and VB-XPS techniques. The XPS and the TEM results confirm the formation of CuS/Bi2WO6 heterostructures. The as-constructed CuS/Bi2WO6 showed excellent absorption in visible region and superior charge carrier separation efficiency due to the formation of a type-II heterojunctions. Under visible light irradiation, 0.1% CuS/Bi2WO6 heterostructure exhibited the best photo-Fenton-like catalytic performance. The degradation efficiency of Rhodamine B (RhB, 20 mg·L−1) can reach nearly 100% within 25 min, the apparent rate constant (kapp/min−1) is approximately 40.06 and 3.87 times higher than that of pure CuS and Bi2WO6, respectively. The degradation efficiency of tetracycline hydrochloride (TC-HCl, 40mg·L−1) can reach 73% in 50 min by employing 0.1% CuS/Bi2WO6 heterostructure as a photo-Fenton-like catalyst. The promoted photo-Fenton catalytic activity of CuS/Bi2WO6 p-n heterostructures is partly ascribed to its low carriers recombination rate. Importantly, CuS in CuS/Bi2WO6 heterostructures is conducive to the formation of heterogeneous photo-Fenton catalytic system, in which Bi2WO6 provides a strong reaction site for CuS to avoid the loss of Cu2+ in Fenton reaction, resulting in its excellent stability and reusability. The possible photo-Fenton-like catalytic degradation mechanism of RhB and TC-HCl was also elucidated on the basis of energy band structure analysis and radical scavenger experiments. The present study provides strong evidence for CuS/Bi2WO6 heterostructures to be used as promising candidates for photo-Fenton treatment of organic pollutants.
Highlights
In recent years, with the continuous development of modern economic society, the problem of water pollution is becoming more and more serious [1,2,3]
Among them, advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) have been regarded as promising methods for removing organic pollutants from wastewater, especially the photo-Fenton technology combined with the advantages of photocatalysis and Fenton catalysis, and have been greatly developed [8,9,10,11,12,13]
We further explored the effect of H2O2 concentration, catalyst dosage, and initial pH value on the degradation performance of tetracycline hydrochloride (TC-HCl) by 0.1% CuS/Bi2WO6 heterostructure under visible light irradiation
Summary
With the continuous development of modern economic society, the problem of water pollution is becoming more and more serious [1,2,3]. Bi-based semiconductors such as Bi2WO6 have attracted much attention in the application of photocatalytic wastewater treatment, due to the suitable band gap energy, low cost, and better catalytic performance [21,22,23,24]. It has been confirmed by combining an additional photocatalyst having a transitional metal oxidation state with Bi-based semiconductors to form heterogeneous photo-Fenton catalysts for pollutants treatment [25,26,27]. We have investigated the effects of H2O2 concentration, catalyst dosage, and initial pH value on the photo-Fenton activity, and detailed the possible mechanism of photo-Fenton catalytic reaction
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