Design and fabrication of self-suspending aluminum-plastic/semiconductor photocatalyst devices for solar energy conversion

Abstract

The design and synthesis of self-suspending photocatalyst device with easy recyclability is important for practical application. Here, this work utilizes aluminum-plastic package waste as raw material to prepare an aluminum-plastic supported TiO2 (AP-TiO2) photocatalyst device through 3D printing design and surface deposition method. A series of characterizations were carried out to explore the structure, morphology and performance of the AP-TiO2 device. Under UV light illumination, the AP-TiO2-50 efficiently degrade 93.6% tetracycline hydrochloride (THC) after 4 hr, which increases by 8.3% compared with that of TiO2 powder suspension system with the same catalyst amount. Based on it, AP-ZnO, AP-CdS, AP-g-C3N4 and AP-Pt-TiO2 are also fabricated, and applied in photocatalytic degradation and hydrogen evolution, which all exhibit higher photoactivities than powder suspension systems. This work provides a new avenue for the fabrication of advanced recyclable photocatalyst device. Moreover, the work offers a novel sight for the high-value utilization of aluminum-plastic package waste, which has positive implications for environmental protection.