Visible light-activated degradation of microcystin-LR by ultrathin g-C3N4 nanosheets-based heterojunction photocatalyst |
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Authors: | Yifeng Xu Bingkun Hu Jining Liu Kai Tao Ranran Wang Yang Ren Xiaofeng Zhao Jijin Xu Xuefeng Song |
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Affiliation: | 1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China;2. State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructure, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China;3. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and Environmental Engineering, Weifang University, Weifang, China |
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Abstract: | Microcystins (MCs) is a harmful toxin generated by blue-green algae in water, which has seriously threatened the ecological safety of water and human body. It is urgent to develop new catalysts and techniques for the degradation of MCs. A feasible electrostatic self-assembly method was carried out to synthesize BiVO4/g-C3N4 heterojunction photocatalyst with highly efficient photocatalytic ability, where BiVO4 nanoplates with exposed {010} facets anchored to the g-C3N4 ultrathin nanosheets. The morphology and microstructure of the heterojunction photocatalysts were identified by XRD, SEM, TEM, XPS, and BET. The g-C3N4 nanosheets have huge surface area over 200 m2/g and abundant mesoporous ranging from 2-20 nm, which provides tremendous contact area for BiVO4 nanoplates. Meanwhile, the introduction of BiVO4 led to red-shift of the absorption spectrum of photocatalyst, which was characterized by UV-vis diffuse reflection spectroscopy (DRS). Compared with pure BiVO4 and g-C3N4, the BiVO4/g-C3N4 heterojunction shows a drastically enhanced photocatalytic activity in degradation of microcystin-LR (MC-LR) in water. The MC-LR could be removed within 15 minutes under the optimal ratio of BiVO4/g-C3N4. The outstanding performance of the photocatalyst is attributed to synergetic effect of interface Z-scheme heterojunction and high active facets {010} of BiVO4 nanoplates, which provides an efficient transfer pathway to separate photoinduced carriers meanwhile endows the photocatalysts with strong redox ability. |
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Keywords: | BiVO4 g-C3N4 nanosheets heterojunction photocatalytic ability |
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