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2D/2D WO3·H2O/g-C3N4 heterostructured assemblies for enhanced photocatalytic water decontamination via strong interfacial contact

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Abstract

A strong interfacial contact of heterostructured photocatalysts plays a key role in charges migration, thus promoting photocatalytic performance. Benefiting from the unique two-dimensional (2D) morphology and abundant terminals, 2D/2D “face-to-face” WO3·H2O/g-C3N4 heterostructured self-assemblies were fabricated employing tungsten oxide hydrate (WO3·H2O) nanoplates and graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) sheets as precursors. Compared to pristine WO3·H2O and g-C3N4, the binary WO3·H2O/g-C3N4 heterostructures exhibit excellent photocatalytic performance towards water decontamination, using organic dye rhodamine B/methyl orange as probes. It is found that WO3·H2O/g-C3N4 with 20 wt% mass ratio (WHC-20) possesses the best photocatalytic activities, with about 3.05 times higher than that of pristine g-C3N4. The remarkable increase performance is attributed to the enhanced evolution of superoxide radicals (·O2−) via photoreduction in adsorbed oxygen molecules (O2−), which are promoted by efficient Z-scheme charges separation and rapid electrons transfer at 2D/2D interface. Given the low-cost, facile synthetic procedure and recycling stability, the heterostructured WO3·H2O/g-C3N4 could be served as a promising photocatalyst to deal with water contamination.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by Key Research and Development Plan of Shandong Province (No. 2018GGX102036), a Project of Shandong Province Higher Educational Science and Technology Program (No. J18KA011) and Doctoral Found of QUST (No. 010022803).

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  1. Longfei Li and Daixun Jiang have contributed equally to this work.

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  1. College of Materials Science and Engineering, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, Zhengzhou Road 53, Qingdao, 266042, China

    Longfei Li, Daixun Jiang, **lu Wu, Xun Sun, **aofei Qu, Liang Shi & Fanglin Du

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  1. Longfei Li
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  2. Daixun Jiang
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Li, L., Jiang, D., Wu, X. et al. 2D/2D WO3·H2O/g-C3N4 heterostructured assemblies for enhanced photocatalytic water decontamination via strong interfacial contact. J Mater Sci 55, 4238–4250 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-019-04264-3

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