Photocatalytic fuel cell assisted by Fenton-like reaction for p-Chloronitrobenzen degradation and electricity production through S-scheme heterojunction C3N5 modified TNAs photoanode: Performance, DFT calculation and mechanism

Abstract

Photocatalytic fuel cell (PFC) is a promising technology to recover usable energy from wastewater through the degradation of pollutants, whereas the complex preparation procedures and high photogenerated carrier recombination efficiency of photoanode remains an urgent challenge to improve the PFC performance. Herein, PFC with S-scheme heterojunction C3N5/TNAs photoanode assisted by Fenton-like reaction (C3N5/TNAs-PFC-Fenton) system was built for p-Chloronitrobenzene degradation and electricity production. The working function confirmed the band bending of C3N5 and TNAs, and density functional theory calculations indicated the formation of internal electric field at heterojunction interface of C3N5 and TNAs, which promoted visible-light absorption capacity and charge transfer property of C3N5/TNAs photoanode. The incorporation of Fenton-like reaction into C3N5/TNAs-PFC-Fenton system could effectively enhance p-Chloronitrobenzene degradation and electricity production by participating in free radical chain reaction and stimulating electron transfer. The radical trapping experiments confirmed that •OH and photogenerated electron were main reactive species, and photogenerated hole, •O2− and 1O2 were also participated in p-Chloronitrobenzene degradation. The p-Chloronitrobenzene degradation pathway was interpreted and the overall toxicity of p-Chloronitrobenzene was relieved after treatment in C3N5/TNAs-PFC-Fenton system. The C3N5/TNAs-PFC-Fenton system exhibited fine universality for degradation of organic pollutants and electricity production.