Projects per year
Abstract
Coupling TiO2 with WO3 to develop photocatalytic heterojunctions is one of the most widely used strategies to realize their superior photoactivity. However, the interfacial charge transfer in these heterojunctions is not efficient to achieve an optimized activity. For the first time, the present study reports a facile hydrolysis-hydrothermal approach, whereby ultradispersed TiO2 nanocrystals and WO3 nanorods are concurrently anchored onto reduced graphene oxide (rGO) and formed a novel Z-scheme heterojunction photocatalyst TiO2/rGO/WO3 (TRW). Transmission electron microscope (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV–vis DRS) and photoluminescence spectra (PL) are employed to characterize TRW. Control experiments indicate that, in the synthesis process, glucose and the by-product sodium chloride from the hydrolysis reactions are critical for forming highly dispersed and uniform-sized TiO2 nanocrystals and WO3 nanorods. Compared with TiO2/WO3 nanocomposites, TRW shows enhanced activity for bacterial inactivation under simulated solar light. As confirmed by electrochemical characterizations and the reactive oxygen species, rGO in TRW suppresses the recombination of electron-hole pairs and boosts the O2 reduction reactions during photocatalytic process. Z-scheme electron transfer in TRW is proposed based on surface redox reactions and XPS analysis after light irradiation. This study could provide a new clue for designing graphene-based heterojunction photocatalysts for environmental applications.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 163-173 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | Applied Catalysis B: Environmental |
Volume | 218 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 5 Dec 2017 |
Keywords
- TiO2
- WO3
- Reduced graphene oxide
- Z-scheme photocatalyst
- Disinfection
Projects
- 2 Finished
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Development of Solar-induced, Dark-active Photocatalytic Membranes for Water Disinfection
McCarthy, D., Zhang, X. & Deletic, A.
Australian Research Council (ARC)
26/02/14 → 31/12/19
Project: Research
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High performance multifunctional hierarchical structured membrane for water processing
Zhang, X.
Australian Research Council (ARC)
31/10/11 → 31/05/17
Project: Research
Equipment
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Centre for Electron Microscopy (MCEM)
Flame Sorrell (Manager) & Peter Miller (Manager)
Office of the Vice-Provost (Research and Research Infrastructure)Facility/equipment: Facility
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Ramaciotti Centre for Cryo-Electron Microscopy
Georg Ramm (Manager), Simon Andrew Crawford (Operator), Hariprasad Venugopal (Operator), Joan Marea Clark (Operator) & Gediminas Gervinskas (Operator)
Faculty of Medicine Nursing and Health Sciences Research PlatformsFacility/equipment: Facility