Generation of hydrogen under visible light irradiation with enhanced photocatalytic activity of Bi₂WO₆/Cu_1.8Se for organic pollutants under Vis‐NIR light reign

Abstract

To make better use of solar light, a new Bi2WO6/Cu1.8Se photocatalyst active to visible and near‐infrared light has been synthesized by a facile hydrothermal method. The composites were characterized by X‐ray diffractometry (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), UV‐vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), and photoluminescene (PL). The photocatalytic activities of Bi2WO6/Cu1.8Se are evaluated by degrading Congo red solution and hydrogen generation from water. It was found that the molar percentage of Cu1.8Se had great effects on the morphology and photocatalytic property of the Bi2WO6/Cu1.8Se heterojunctions, and the composite with suitable molar amount of Cu1.8Se exhibits much enhanced photocatalytic activity for Congo red degradation under visible and near‐infrared light irradiation and for hydrogen generation under visible light compared to Bi2WO6. The significant improvement photocatalytic activity of the composite could be attributed to its good light absorption, suitable band gap structure, and effective separation of photogenerated electron‐hole pairs of Bi2WO6/Cu1.8Se heterojunction. This work presents an efficient multifunction photocatalyst owning the activity both for water splitting under visible light and for organic contaminants decomposition under visible‐near‐infrared light.

Photocatalytic hydrogen generation coupled to pollutant utilisation using carbon dots produced from biomass

“…[2][3][4]53 It is also higher than what has been reported for numerous benchmark non-carbonaceous and/or multi-absorber systems in purified water (19−12,000 µmol H2 g -1 h -1 , Table S2), which serve H2 evolution and pollutant degradation separately, under N2 and O2, respectively. [54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61] The H2 production rate drops after 6 h of irradiation for all photoabsorbers, due to instability and decomposition of the molecular framework of the NiP catalyst (Fig. 3a).…”

Near‐Infrared‐Driven Photocatalysts: Design, Construction, and Applications

“…Figure displays some of the dyes reported previously. [ 23,24,31,68,100,111,114,121 ] Another important contaminant of water is heavy metal, such as lead, mercury, cobalt, chromium, etc. This kind of pollution is mainly caused by mining or waste discharging of factory.…”

Synthesis and photocatalytic H2‐production activity of plasma‐treated Ti3C2Tx MXene modified graphitic carbon nitride

“…Hydrogen energy, a promising alternative fuel in the future, has attracted extensive interests in the last few years due to its high energy capacity and environment friendly nature. [1][2][3][4][5] Among various H 2 production strategies, photocatalytic water-splitting is a feasible method under normal pressure and temperature. [6][7][8][9] To date, various photocatalysts have been studied, such as sulfides, oxides, graphitic carbon nitride.…”