Defect Engineering of BiWO for Enhanced Photocatalytic Degradation of Antibiotic Pollutants.

Infiltration of excessive antibiotics into aquatic ecosystems plays a significant role in antibiotic resistance, a major global health challenge. It is therefore critical to develop effective technologies for their removal. Herein, defect-rich BiWO nanoparticles are solvothermally prepared via epitaxial growth on pristine BiWO seed nanocrystals, and the efficiency of the photocatalytic degradation of ciprofloxacin, a common antibiotic, is found to increase markedly from 62.

Visible light photocatalytic degradation of sulfanilamide enhanced by Mo doping of BiOBr nanoflowers.

Design of high-efficiency visible light photocatalysts is critical in the degradation of antibiotic pollutants in water, a key step towards environmental remediation. In the present study, Mo-doped BiOBr nanocomposites are prepared hydrothermally at different feed ratios, and display remarkable visible light photocatalytic activity towards the degradation of sulfanilamide, a common antibacterial drug. Among the series, the sample with 2% Mo dopants exhibits the best photocatalytic activity, with a performance 2.

Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering Quantitative Analysis of Ethanol Drop-Coating Silver Nanocubes on Gold Film.

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) has been a sensitive tool for the accurate detection and analysis of a wide range of molecules. In the present study, a simple and repeatable approach is developed for the fabrication of a silver nanocubes/polyelectrolyte/gold film (Ag nanocubes/PE/Au film) sandwich structure as SERS substrate. An ethanol-water mixture, instead of pure water, is used as solvent to reduce the coffee ring effect by the drop coating deposition method, such that Ag nanocubes are distributed evenly on the gold film surface with polyelectrolyte as the middle layer.

Visible-Light-Driven Nitrogen Fixation Catalyzed by BiOBr Nanostructures: Enhanced Performance by Oxygen Vacancies.

Photocatalytic nitrogen fixation represents a green alternative to the conventional Haber-Bosch process in the conversion of nitrogen to ammonia. In this study, a series of BiOBr nanostructures were synthesized via a facile, low-temperature thermal treatment procedure, and their photocatalytic activity toward nitrogen fixation was evaluated and compared. Spectroscopic measurements showed that the tubular BiOBr sample prepared at 40 °C (BiOBr-40) exhibited the highest electron-transfer rate among the series, producing a large number of O radicals and oxygen vacancies under visible-light photoirradiation and reaching a rate of photocatalytic nitrogen fixation of 12.