First-principles calculations and experimental investigation on SnO2@ZnO heterojunction photocatalyst with enhanced photocatalytic performance

Sifan Chen; Fenning Liu; Manzhang Xu; Junfeng Yan; Fuchun Zhang; Wu Zhao; Zhiyong Zhang; Zhouhu Deng; Jiangni Yun; Ruiyong Chen; Chunli Liu

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2019.06.053

First-principles calculations and experimental investigation on SnO₂@ZnO heterojunction photocatalyst with enhanced photocatalytic performance

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2019 Oct 1:553:613-621. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2019.06.053. Epub 2019 Jun 17.

Authors

Sifan Chen¹, Fenning Liu¹, Manzhang Xu¹, Junfeng Yan², Fuchun Zhang³, Wu Zhao¹, Zhiyong Zhang¹, Zhouhu Deng¹, Jiangni Yun¹, Ruiyong Chen⁴, Chunli Liu⁵

Affiliations

¹ School of Information Science and Technology, Northwest University, Xi'an 710127, PR China.
² School of Information Science and Technology, Northwest University, Xi'an 710127, PR China. Electronic address: yanjf@nwu.edu.cn.
³ College of Physics and Electronic Information, Yan'an University, Yan'an 716000, PR China. Electronic address: yadxzfc@yau.edu.cn.
⁴ Saarland University, Transfercenter Sustainable Electrochemistry, D-66125 Saarbrucken, Germany; KIST Europe, Campus E7 1, D-66123 Saarbrucken, Germany.
⁵ Department of Physics and Oxide Research Center, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Yongin 17035, Republic of Korea.

PMID: 31247500
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2019.06.053

Abstract

In this study, branch-like SnO₂@ZnO heterojunction photocatalyst was successfully fabricated via a simple two-step hydrothermal process. The optical and electronic properties were characterized in detail and the results indicated that SnO₂@ZnO nanocomposites (TZNCs) exhibited superior photocatalytic performance under visible light irradiation as compared to pure SnO₂ and ZnO. The excellent photocatalytic performance of TZNCs can be ascribed to the heterojunction structure between ZnO and SnO₂ which depresses the recombination of photogenerated electron-hole pairs. In addition, the branch-like morphology can provide large specific surface. Moreover, the density functional theory (DFT) computation on the Fermi level results confirmed that heterojunction structure between ZnO and SnO₂ is more favor of the transfer of photogenerated eletrons from ZnO to SnO₂, effectively improving separation of photogenerated electron-hole pairs. Noteworthy, this work would pave the route for the two semiconductor materials with a big work function difference which would lead to the high contact potential difference, surely contributing to improving the performance of photocatalysts.

Keywords: First-principles calculations; Heterojunction photocatalyst; Photocatalytic mechanism; SnO(2)@ZnO nanocomposites.