Abstract
Abstract The strategy to improve the photocatalytic removal efficiencies towards organic pollutants is still a challenge for the novel Sillen–Aurivillius perovskite type Bi4NbO8Cl. Herein, we report carbon-supported TiO2/Bi4NbO8Cl (C-TiO2/Bi4NbO8Cl) heterostructures with enhanced charge separation efficiency, which were fabricated via molten-salt flux process. The carbon-supported TiO2 particles were derived from MXene Ti3C2 precursors, and attached on plate-like Bi4NbO8Cl, acting as electron-traps to achieve supressed recombination of photo-induced charges. The improved charge separation confers C-TiO2/Bi4NbO8Cl heterostructures superior photocatalytic performance with 53% higher than pristine Bi4NbO8Cl, towards rhodamine B removal with the help of photo-induced holes. Moreover, the C-TiO2/Bi4NbO8Cl heterostructures can be expanded to deal with other water contaminants, such as methyl orange, ciprofloxacin and 2,4-dichlorophenol with 44, 25 and 13% promotion, respectively, and thus the study offers a series of efficient photocatalysts for water purification.
Highlights
Visible-light-driven photocatalysis using semiconductors is emerging as a hot topic of research to handle with impending issues related to industrial wastewater [1,2,3,4,5]
When the MXene Ti3C2 was utilized as additive blending with the above mixture, the carbon-supported TiO2 nanoparticles (C-TiO2) were simultaneously constructed on the surface of platelike Bi4NbO8Cl, obtaining C-TiO2/Bi4NbO8Cl heterostructures
The crystallinity is increased as the temperature rises, which is reflected by the values of the full width at half maximum (FWHM), as shown in Table S1 (ESI)
Summary
Visible-light-driven photocatalysis using semiconductors is emerging as a hot topic of research to handle with impending issues related to industrial wastewater [1,2,3,4,5]. The most reactive species involved in the photocatalytic removal of organic dyes by Bi4NbO8Cl are photo-induced holes, which are non-selective for organic compounds oxidation [20] It would be more advantageous for the charge separation. We synthesized quasi-2D Bi4NbO8Cl plates via a flux method in air using NaCl/KCl mixed molten salts, and MXene Ti3C2 was simultaneously introduced in this procedure, in order to construct carbon-supported TiO2 (C-TiO2) loading on Bi4NbO8Cl. Based on the feature that photo-induced electrons migrate to edges of Bi4NbO8Cl while holes accumulate in plane in the photocatalytic process according to previous report [39], the C-TiO2 can act as electron-trap to reduce migration distance for electrons. The mechanism of the MXene Ti3C2 derived C-TiO2 promoted electrons transfer, leading to enhancement of photoinduced holes accumulation for effective oxidation of common water contaminants, was illustrated
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