Qin Li,Yang Xia,Chao Yang,Kangle Lv,Ming Lei,Mei Li
Facing the requirement of modern industrial development, selective reduction of 4-nitroaniline (4-NA) into p-phenylenediamine (PPD) via a facile, economic and eco-friendly photocatalysis technique has attracted more and more attention in recent years. In this study, ZnIn 2 S 4 (ZIS) nanosheets grew in-situ on the surface of TiO 2 hollowspheres through a hydrothermal method and formed a direct Z-scheme heterojunction composite, which exhibited exceedingly better photocatalytic 4-NA reduction performance than bare ZIS and TiO 2 . Such enhancement was mainly attributed to the dissimilar dimensionalities, intimate contact, and matchable band edge positions between ZIS and TiO 2 semiconductors. Moreover, the substantial mechanism for the photocatalytic reaction in the ZIS/TiO 2 system was reasonably proposed. Inspired by recent applications of the Z-scheme heterostructured materials in solar energy conversion and artificial photosynthesis, this work would arouse an increasing interest in designing more Z-scheme photocatalyst systems with high efficiency and extensive applications.
Hollow spheres (HSs) are widely used as nanoreactors and catalysts due to their significantly large surface area, low density and high loading capacity. In this paper, new composites with PNVCL on the interior surface of mesoporous TiO 2 hollow spheres (TiO 2 -HSs), which were named PNVCL@TiO 2 -HSs, were designed and prepared. After grafting PNVCL on TiO 2 -HSs, the light absorption range extended from less than 400 nm to less than 418 nm. Compared with traditional composites (TiO 2 -HSs@PNVCL), the new composites have good dispersibility in water at a wide temperature range. Thus PNVCL@TiO 2 -HSs can be used as photocatalysts and showed higher catalytic activity in photocatalytic degradation of Rhodamine B (RB) and Acid Red 57 (AR57) in wastewater. ·OH radicals were confirmed to be the main active species and played a dominant role in the degradation, and the photocatalytic mechanism was discussed. The new composites provided new insights for exploring more diversified grafting methods.