Carbon Materials as Additives to WO3 for an Enhanced Conversion of Simulated Solar Light

Abstract

We have explored the impact of the incorporation of nanoporous carbons as additives to tungsten oxide on the photocatalytic degradation of two recalcitrant pollutants: rhodamine B (RhB) and phenol, under simulated solar light. For this purpose, WO3/ carbon mixtures were prepared using three carbon materials with different properties (in terms of porosity, structural order and surface chemistry). Despite the low carbon content used (2 wt.%), a significant increase in the photocatalytic performance of the semiconductor was observed for all the catalysts. Moreover, the influence of the carbon additive on the performance of the photocatalysts was found to be very different for the two pollutants. Carbon additives of hydrophobic nature increased the photodegradation yield of phenol compared to bare WO3, likely due to the higher affinity and stronger interactions of phenol molecules toward basic nanoporous carbons. Oppositely, the use of acidic carbon additives led to higher RhB conversions due to increased acidity of the WO3/carbon mixtures and the stronger affinity of the pollutant for acidic catalyst's surfaces. As a result, the photooxidation of RhB is favored by means of a coupled (photosensitized and photocatalytic) degradation mechanism. All these results highlight the importance of favoring the interactions of the pollutant with the catalyst's surface through a detailed design of the features of the photocatalyst.

Green Waste-Derived Substances Immobilized on SBA-15 Silica: Surface Properties, Adsorbing and Photosensitizing Activities towards Organic and Inorganic Substrates

“…These two dyes were selected since they are used as reference models in many studies concerning the photocatalytic properties of different materials [ 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 ], Moreover, they are differently charged at pH 5.5: Orange II is negatively charged [ 23 ], whereas Rhodamine B presents its zwitterionic form [ 24 ].…”

10 years of frontiers in carbon-based materials: carbon, the “newest and oldest” material. The story so far

“…The simplest synthesis method is through physical mixing using an agate mortar. This was reported in the synthesis of the WO 3 /CNTs material (Carmona et al, 2016). However, generally, synthesis methods use solvents to favor the interaction between both compounds.…”

“…In the case of metal oxides, the review article elaborated by Wu et al (2020) provides a synthesis method to prepare MnO 2 /activated carbon composites via an electrodeposition technique. However, easier methods can be applied for the preparation of composites such as the physical mixture reported by Carmona et al (2016) in the design of WO 3 /activated carbon.…”

2D/2D Graphitic Carbon Nitride (g-C3N4) Heterojunction Nanocomposites for Photocatalysis: Why Does Face-to-Face Interface Matter?

“…At present, π-conjugated carbonaceous nanomaterials, including carbon nanotubes, grapheme, and carbon nanodots has emerged as one of the most fascinating and exciting research directions in the past 10 years especially in the arena of environmental remediation, energy conversion, and energy storage (Tan et al, 2013;Cazorla-Amorós, 2014;Li et al, 2014;Cao and Wei, 2015;Fan, 2015;Ali Tahir et al, 2016;Carmona et al, 2016;Kotal et al, 2016;Xu et al, 2016). These carbon nanostructures have been commonly utilized as excellent reduction cocatalysts by incorporating with semiconductor photocatalysts to prolong the lifetime of charge carriers to diminish the recombination of electron-hole pairs (Xu et al, 2013;Himaja et al, 2015;Liu et al, 2015;Tan et al, 2015a;Hu, 2016;Zhang et al, 2016f; Ong al., 2017).…”