7 research outputs found
Z‑Scheme BiOCl-Au-CdS Heterostructure with Enhanced Sunlight-Driven Photocatalytic Activity in Degrading Water Dyes and Antibiotics
Although semiconductor
photocatalysis has made great progresses
as a promising solution to solve the problem of environmental pollution,
the highly efficient decomposition of organic pollutants driven by
sunlight is still a challenge. Herein, we successfully constructed
a Z-scheme photocatalyst BiOCl-Au-CdS for the first time by stepwise
deposition of Au and CdS. It was found that the Au nanoparticles (NPs)
were selectively anchored on the {001} facets of BiOCl nanosheets
in the process of photoreduction while CdS NPs were further in situ
deposited on Au NPs via the strong S–Au interaction. Compared
to BiOCl, BiOCl-Au, and BiOCl-CdS, the Z-scheme BiOCl-Au-CdS exhibited
evidently higher sunlight-driven photocatalytic activity toward the
degradations of anionic dye Methyl Orange, cationic dye Rhodamine
B, colorless pollutant phenol, and antibiotic sulfadiazine. The radical
trapping experiments indicated that ·OH, h<sup>+</sup>, and ·O<sub>2</sub><sup>–</sup> are the main reactive species responsible
for the degradations of organic pollutants over BiOCl-Au-CdS. Based
on the photoelectrochemical measurements, PL spectra, and band potential
calculation, it can be concluded that the Z-scheme structure of BiOCl-Au-CdS
not only retains the photogenerated electrons and holes with higher
redox ability but also decreases their recombination rate. As a highly
efficient sunlight driven photocatalyst, BiOCl-Au-CdS can be potentially
used in environmental pollutant remediation