Self-assembled hole transport engineering and bio-inspired coordination/incoordination ligands synergizing strategy for productive photoelectrochemical water splitting.

Charge transport and metal site stability play a critical role on realizing efficient solar water splitting in photoelectrochemical devices. Here, we investigated BiVO-based composite photoanodes (labelled as NF@PTA/2PACz/BVO) in which BiVO, [2-(9H-carbazol-9-yl) ethyl] phosphonic acid (2PACz) hole transport layers based on self-assembled monolayers (SAMs), and terephthalic acid (PTA)-functionalized NiFeOOH (NF@PTA) oxygen evolution cocatalysts (OECs) structurally similar to the OECs in natural photosystem II, were assembled sequentially. Alignment of energy levels and stabilization of metal sites can be achieved by this layer-designed structure.

In Situ Construction of Near-Infrared Response Hybrid Up-Conversion Photocatalyst for Degrading Organic Dyes and Antibiotics.

Unique nonlinear optical properties for converting low-energy incident light into high-energy radiation enable up-conversion materials to be employed in photocatalytic systems. An efficient near-infrared (NIR) response photocatalyst was successfully fabricated through a facile two-step method to load BiOBr on the Nd, Er@NaYF (NE@NYF) up-conversion material. The NE@NYF can transform NIR into visible and UV light and promote charge-energy transfer in the semiconductor.

Nitrogen-deficient g-CN/POMs porous nanosheets with P-N heterojunctions capable of the efficient photocatalytic degradation of ciprofloxacin.

The direct shedding of piperazine rings is critical for the degradation of antibiotic persistent organic pollutants. In this work, nitrogen-deficient g-CN loaded with polyoxometalates porous photocatalysts with P-N heterojunctions were carried out through the formation of chemical bonds between the nitrogen-deficient C in g-CN and the bridging oxygen in polyoxometalates (POMs), including phosphomolybdic acid (PMA), phosphotungstic acid (PTA) and silicotungstic acid (STA). The adsorption and photocatalysis experiments confirm the ability of the g-CN/POMs nanosheets to efficiently remove ciprofloxacin via the synergistic effects of adsorption and photo-catalysis.

Photoredox catalysis of As(III) by constructed CSnS bonds: Using biomass as templates leads to bio‑carbon/SnS nanosheets capable of the efficient photocatalytic conversion of As(III) and calcium arsenate capture.

In this paper, a new interface design strategy for bio‑carbon/SnS nanosheets equipped with CSnS bonds was proposed by using biomass as a template for the efficient photocatalytic conversion of As(III). The characterization results illustrated that the CSnS bonds could effectively prevent the agglomeration of SnS, expand the photoresponse range and improve the hydrophilicity of the bio‑carbon/SnS composites while reducing their transfer resistance. Therefore, the construction of CSnS bonds could more efficiently promote the photoredox catalysis of As(III) to As(V) compared with pure SnS, attributing to the polarization and conjugation effects of the CSn bonds.

Silver-loaded InS-CdInS@X(X=Ag, AgPO, AgI) ternary heterostructure nanotubes treated by electron beam irradiation with enhanced photocatalytic activity.

Ternary heterostructure nanotubes of InS-CdInS@X(X = Ag, AgPO, AgI) were synthesized with enhanced photocatalytic activity for efficiently degrading pollutants. Electron beam irradiation was employed to artificially introduce interface defects to the heterostructure nanotubes. The experimental results for degrading carmine and Cr under visible light irradiation showed that the photocatalytic efficiency of InS-CdInS was improved to some extent by the introduction of silver compounds.