A new ferroelectric p-block photocatalyst, Ag10Si4O13, has been successfully prepared here and exhibited excellent visible-light-driven photocatalytic activity towards the degradation of organic compounds.
Ferroelectric-photocatalyst/photocatalyst
heterojunctions have
very attractive photocatalytic activities. Besides enhanced charge-carrier
separation due to their internal electric fields, charge transfer
could be even further enhanced by designing the heterojunction interface.
In this work, the polarization–adsorption interaction that
exists in ferroelectric materials was employed for successful deposition
of BiOI on specific surfaces of Bi4Ti3O12 plates in the dark at room temperature, where the positively
polarized region was found. The crystal structure, morphology, and
composition of samples were confirmed by X-ray diffraction, field-emission
scanning electron microscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy,
respectively. Higher photocatalytic activity was achieved by the use
of heterojunctions, with the reason behind the enhancement of activity
confirmed to be the modified band structure, which contributed to
the transfer of photoelectrons from Bi4Ti3O12 to BiOI, the increased visible light absorption, the increased
active site area of positively polarized Bi4Ti3O12, and the elimination of the screening layer, which
contributes impedance in charge transfer.
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