One-step hydrothermal synthesis of CePO4@C with highly efficient photocatalytic performance

Solar-light-driven photocatalysis is a promising solution to remove various pollution and antibiotic. However, its performance is greatly limited by the fast recombination of photogenerated charge carriers. Here, we prepared carbon-encapsulated cerium phosphate nanocomposites (CePO 4 @C) by an in situ one-step hydrothermal synthesis strategy. The carbon layer not only receives electrons from CePO 4 facilitated by an internal electric field over Mott-Schottky heterostructures but also promotes further electron diffusion along a conductive carbon layer, resulting in fast charge transfer and a low charge recombination rate of photogenerated charge carriers. Due to its suitable characteristics, the nanocomposites demonstrated high photocatalytic efficiency (98.8 % for methyl orange and 81.2 % for tetracycline hydrochloride within 40 min). This work provides an in situ one-step synthesis approach for carbon-encapsulated semiconducting oxide nanocomposites that are promising for use as highly efficient photocatalysts in future applications.