Abstract
Porous hollow Ga2O3 nanoparticles were successfully synthesized by a hydrolysis method followed by calcination. The prepared samples were characterized by field emission scanning electron microscope, transmission electron microscope, thermogravimetry and differential scanning calorimetry, UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectra and Raman spectrum. The porous structure of Ga2O3 nanoparticles can enhance the light harvesting efficiency, and provide lots of channels for the diffusion of Cr(VI) and Cr(III). Photocatalytic reduction of Cr(VI), with different initial pH and degradation of several organic substrates by porous hollow Ga2O3 nanoparticles in single system and binary system, were investigated in detail. The reduction rate of Cr(VI) in the binary pollutant system is markedly faster than that in the single Cr(VI) system, because Cr(VI) mainly acts as photogenerated electron acceptor. In addition, the type and concentration of organic substrates have an important role in the photocatalytic reduction of Cr(VI).
Highlights
Heavy metal ions from wastewater have become the primary threat to the human environment with the development of industrial civilization [1,2,3,4]
Previous X-ray diffraction (XRD) results show that the phase composition of the GaOOH precursor and its calcined product are α-GaOOH (JCPDS No 06-0180) and β-Ga2O3 (JCPDS No 41-1103), respectively [25]
The characteristic Raman bands of α-Ga2O3 and β-Ga2O3 are shown in Figure 1a,b, respectively; this is consistent with the reported results [28,29]
Summary
Heavy metal ions from wastewater have become the primary threat to the human environment with the development of industrial civilization [1,2,3,4]. Hexavalent chromium (Cr(VI)) is a typical heavy metal contaminant with high solubility and toxicity, which originates from various industrial processes such as electroplating, leather tanning, and paint manufacture [5]. A common method of treating Cr(VI) in wastewater is to convert it into low toxic Cr(III), which can be precipitated as Cr(OH) in neutral or alkaline solutions, and removed as a solid waste [6]. Organic and inorganic pollutants usually co-exist in industrial wastewater and natural aqueous environment, and no doubt the presence of organic pollutants in wastewater will greatly increase the difficulty of photocatalytic reduction of Cr(VI) [12,13,14]
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