Improving hole transfer of boron nitride quantum dots modified PDI for efficient photodegradation

Abstract

In recent years, organic photocatalyst under visible-light absorption has shown significant potential for solving environmental problems. However, it is still a great challenge for constructing a highly active organic photocatalyst due to the low separation efficiency of photogenerated carriers. Herein, an effective and robust photocatalyst perylene-3,4,9,10-tetracarboxylic diamide/boron nitride quantum dots (PDI/BNQDs), consisting of self-assemble PDI with π–π stacking structure and BNQDs, has been constructed and researched under visible light irradiation. The PDI/BNQDs composite gradually increases organic pollutant photodegradation with the loading amount of BNQDs. With 10 mL of BNQDs solution added (PDI/BNQDs-10), the organic pollutant photodegradation performance reaches a maximum, about 6.16 times higher with methylene blue and 1.68 times higher with ciprofloxacin than that of pure PDI supramolecular. The enhancement is attributed to improved separation of photogenerated carriers from self-assembled PDI by BNQDs due to their preeminent ability to extract holes. This work is significant for the supplement of PDI supramolecular composite materials. We believe that this photocatalytic design is capable of expanding organic semiconductors’ potential for their applications in photocatalysis.

Key words： PDI; boron nitride; quantum dots; photocatalysis; hole transfer

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts to declare.

Acknowledgements

This work was partly supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 21978276), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant Nos. 2652019157, 2652019158, and 2652019159).

Electronic Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11705-023-2319-7 and is accessible for authorized users.

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