Construction of mesoporous PdO/YVO4 p-n heterojunction wrinkled-nanosheets fostering electron transfer for boosted photocatalytic atrazine degradation under visible light

Abstract

Heterogeneous photocatalysis is an environmentally friendly and sustainable process for water purification. Unluckily, the significant propensity for photo-induced charge carriers to recombine rapidly, as well as poor responsiveness to visible light, are substantial shortcomings in conventional semiconductor photocatalysis. In this study, a facile surfactant-mediated solvothermal process, along with an impregnation approach was applied to fabricate a series of PdO/YVO4 p-n heterostructures with diverse PdO contents for atrazine (AT) oxidation under visible light. Diverse characterization tools confirmed the homogeneous dispersion of PdO nanoparticles (NPs) on mesoporous YVO4 nanosheets, thereby forming p-n junctions and facilitating charge carriers' separation. Moreover, the fabricated p-n heterojunction materials exhibited enhanced photoabsorbance abilities. It was demonstrated that the inclusion of PdO NPs considerably enhanced the photocatalytic capability and performance of the YVO4 candidate under visible light. The complete atrazine decomposition was accomplished on 2.0 g/L of 0.6 wt% PdO/YVO4 with a remarkable rate constant of 52.51 × 10−3 min−1 which was ca. 25.6-folds more than that achieved on bare YVO4 (2.05 × 10−3 min−1), while maintaining a 98.0 % recycling rate. The p-n heterojunction photocatalyst constructed between PdO and YVO4 exhibited a key role in improving the photoharvesting capability and accelerating the separation of photo-produced carriers, generating highly reactive oxygen species to degrade AT effectively. All in all, this achievement proposes a new YVO4-based heterostructures that can effectively eliminate organic contaminants in wastewater and also presents novel ideas for designing other heterojunctions.