Constructing heterojunction between two semiconductors is a cost-effective pathway to fabricate efficient photocatalysts for environmental remediation and energy-related applications, which is with profound significance and high desirability to contemporary era. In this work, we demonstrate an extremely facile approach to couple bismuth subcarbonate with polymeric carbon nitride (denoted as BIOC@PCN) by ion exchange between home-made rose-like Bi2O2(OH)(NO3) (denoted as BION) and PCN bulks at 433?K solvothermal condition. PCN bulks play multi-roles in this ingenious one-pot method. Firstly, PCN bulks guarantee the negatively charged surface to anchor plentiful bismuth precursor salts. More importantly, solvothermal treatment affords a weak basic and sufficient CO32? ions environment to promote the following ion exchange reaction. The evolution of morphology, components and structure from rose-like BION to BIOC@PCN were symmetrically characterized by means of SEM, HR-TEM, XRD, FTIR, TG, UV–vis, BET-BJH and XPS. The as-prepared nanohybrid photocatalyst (0.5BIOC@PCN) presents optimal photocatalytic performance for gaseous acetaldehyde removal, which is showing 10, 6.5 and 2 times higher than that of the PCN-Bulk, BION and mechanical mixed BIOC/PCN counterparts, respectively. Transient photocurrent response and EPR results further verify the validity of the established heterojunction of BIOC@PCN in facilitating the separation of charge carriers. The performance improvement gains from the efficient separation of charge carriers in BIOC@PCN heterojunction, manifested by PL spectra, transient photocurrent response and EPR results. In this study, a facile and cost-effective approach to build PCN-based nanohybrid photocatalysts for gaseous acetaldehyde efficient removal was established.

» Author: Qitao Zhang, Saisai Yuan, Bin Xu, Yangsen Xu, Kuanhong Cao, Zhengyuan Jin, Chuntian Qiu, Ming Zhang, Chenliang Su, Teruhisa Ohno

» Reference: 10.1016/j.cattod.2018.03.071

» Publication Date: 01/10/2018

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