Monolithic nickel foam supported macro-catalyst: Manipulation of charge transfer for enhancement of photo-activity

Abstract

• A macroscopical nickel foam material supported by sulfide and TiO 2 is developed. • This composite foam demonstrates excellent visible light responsive performance and recyclable. • The introduction of macro-foamed nickel carrier changed the conventional photocatalytic mode. • This method will open a great route for future applications of solar energy conversion and water pollutant management. The dimensions and structure of conventional photocatalysts severely limit their industrial applications. In view of this, a novel monolithic supported macroscopic catalysts (SMCs) was successfully designed and developed for the first time. The visible-light responsive and reusable Zn 0.95 Fe 0.05 S@TiO 2 /nickel foam (ZFS@TiO 2 /NF) SMCs was assembled with ZFS particle catalyst as a light responder that was protected by defective TiO 2 as a carriers capture layer, the multihole and flexile nickel foam material was induced into photocatalytic system with the function of supporting and charge storage. This integrated material exhibited an unprecedentedly high utilization of carriers by a new set of unique “generation-capture-migration-utilization” path, which was attributed to the key properties of the integration of three independent materials. Furthermore, the loading operation can maximum exert dimensions and interfaces optimization of ZFS and TiO 2 . This work proposes a novel mechanism of charge transfer for rational design of macro photocatalysts.