Coupling of BiOCl Ultrathin Nanosheets with Carbon Quantum Dots for Enhanced Photocatalytic Performance

Pin Song; Xiaoyu Fang; Wei Jiang; Yuyang Cao; Daobin Liu; Shiqiang Wei; Jun Du; Lang Sun; Lei Zhao; Song Liu; Yuzhu Zhou; Jun Di; Chade Lv; Bijun Tang; Jiefu Yang; Tingting Kong; Yujie Xiong

doi:10.1007/s12209-024-00391-4

Transactions of Tianjin University ›› 2024, Vol. 30 ›› Issue (3) : 211 -220. DOI: 10.1007/s12209-024-00391-4

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Coupling of BiOCl Ultrathin Nanosheets with Carbon Quantum Dots for Enhanced Photocatalytic Performance

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¹ Key Laboratory of Functional Molecular Solids, Ministry of Education, Anhui Engineering Research Center of Carbon Neutrality, College of Chemistry and Materials Science, Anhui Normal University, 241000, Wuhu, China

² National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, School of Chemistry and Materials Science, University of Science and Technology of China, 230029, Hefei, China

³ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, National Special Superfine Powder Engineering Research Center, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, 210094, Nanjing, China

⁴ MIIT Key Laboratory of Critical Materials Technology for New Energy Conversion and Storage, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, 150001, Harbin, China

⁵ School of Materials Science & Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 639798, Singapore

^a songpin@ahnu.edu.cn

ⁿ dijun@njust.edu.cn

^t yjxiong@ustc.edu.cn

Pin Song received his Ph.D. under the supervision of Prof. Shu-Hong Yu from Hefei University of Technology (HFUT) in 2018. He carried out postdoctoral research (2018–2021) at Nanyang Technological University with Professor Zheng Liu. Then, he joined Professor Yujie Xiong‘s team as a professor at Anhui Normal University. His research interests mainly focus on the synthesis of novel two dimensional materials and the application for photocatalytic energy conversion, and the research of new photocatalysis technology based on 3D printing

Jun Di received his BS degree in (2012) and Ph.D. degree (2018) from Jiangsu University. He then carried out postdoctoral research (2018–2022) at Nanyang Technological University with Professor Zheng Liu. He is a professor at Nanjing University of Science and Technology. He is the first or corresponding author of more than 70 peer-reviewed scientific papers published on Nat. Commun., Coord. Chem. Rev., Adv. Mater., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., Mater. Today, etc., with over 12000 citations and H-index of 61. His research interests focus on design and synthesis of 2D materials for photocatalytic energy conversion.

Yujie Xiong received his B.S. in chemical physics in 2000 and Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry in 2004, both from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). From 2004 to 2009, he worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Washington in Seattle and as a Research Associate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, respectively. He was the Principal Scientist of the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NSF-NNIN) site at Washington University in St. Louis in 2009–2011. He joined the USTC faculty in 2011, and currently, is the Chair Professor of Chemistry. His research centers on solar-driven artificial carbon cycle.

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Abstract

Over the past few decades, photocatalysis technology has received extensive attention because of its potential to mitigate or solve energy and environmental pollution problems.Designing novel materials with outstanding photocatalytic activities has become a research hotspot in this field. In this study, we prepared a series of photocatalysts in which BiOCl nanosheets were modified with carbon quantum dots (CQDs) to form CQDs/BiOCl composites by using a simple solvothermal method. The photocatalytic performance of the resulting CQDs/BiOCl composite photocatalysts was assessed by rhodamine B and tetracycline degradation under visible-light irradiation. Compared with bare BiOCl, the photocatalytic activity of the CQDs/BiOCl composites was significantly enhanced, and the 5 wt% CQDs/BiOCl composite exhibited the highest photocatalytic activity with a degradation efficiency of 94.5% after 30 min of irradiation. Moreover, photocatalytic N₂ reduction performance was significantly improved after introducing CQDs. The 5 wt% CQDs/BiOCl composite displayed the highest photocatalytic N₂ reduction performance to yield NH₃ (346.25 μmol/(g h)), which is significantly higher than those of 3 wt% CQDs/BiOCl (256.04 μmol/(g h)), 7 wt% CQDs/BiOCl (254.07 μmol/(g h)), and bare BiOCl (240.19 μmol/(g h)). Our systematic characterizations revealed that the key role of CQDs in improving photocatalytic performance is due to their increased light harvesting capacity, remarkable electron transfer ability, and higher photocatalytic activity sites.

Graphical Abstract

This work reports a novel CQDs/BiOCl composite photocatalyst for efficiently removing contaminants from water.

Keywords

Carbon quantum dots / BiOCl / Rhodamine B / Tetracycline / Photocatalysis

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Pin Song, Xiaoyu Fang, Wei Jiang, Yuyang Cao, Daobin Liu, Shiqiang Wei, Jun Du, Lang Sun, Lei Zhao, Song Liu, Yuzhu Zhou, Jun Di, Chade Lv, Bijun Tang, Jiefu Yang, Tingting Kong, Yujie Xiong. Coupling of BiOCl Ultrathin Nanosheets with Carbon Quantum Dots for Enhanced Photocatalytic Performance. Transactions of Tianjin University, 2024, 30(3): 211-220 DOI:10.1007/s12209-024-00391-4

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