Plasma enhanced Bi/Bi2O2CO3 heterojunction photocatalyst via a novel in-situ method

Dongfeng Sun; Luo Huang; Li Li; Yuan Yu; Gaohui Du; Bingshe Xu

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2020.03.021

Plasma enhanced Bi/Bi₂O₂CO₃ heterojunction photocatalyst via a novel in-situ method

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2020 Jul 1:571:80-89. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2020.03.021. Epub 2020 Mar 9.

Authors

Dongfeng Sun¹, Luo Huang², Li Li², Yuan Yu³, Gaohui Du¹, Bingshe Xu¹

Affiliations

¹ Materials Institute of Atomic and Molecular Science, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi'an 710021, China.
² Materials Institute of Atomic and Molecular Science, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi'an 710021, China; School of Materials Science & Engineering, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi'an 710021, China.
³ Materials Institute of Atomic and Molecular Science, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi'an 710021, China. Electronic address: yuyuan@sust.edu.cn.

PMID: 32182499
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2020.03.021

Abstract

This paper presented the plasmonic Bi in-situ deposited on the surface of Bi₂O₂CO₃ nanoplates forming plasma enhanced Bi/Bi₂O₂CO₃ heterojunction photocatalyst through a facile one-pot solvothermal method by using methanol as both solvent and carbon source. The water splitting efficiency of the as-prepared Bi/Bi₂O₂CO₃ heterojunction photocatalyst was much better than that of pure phase Bi₂O₂CO₃ due to the Bi nanoparticles surface plasma resonance (SPR) effect for promoting light response and the charge carriers separation and transfer. The experimental results also showed that the H₂O played an important role in the fabrication of Bi/Bi₂O₂CO₃ heterojunction photocatalyst, furthermore, the content of Bi in Bi/Bi₂O₂CO₃ changed with the variation of additional H₂O which impacted photocatalytic activities. The method of semimetal in-situ deposition without reductants in this work also provided new perspectives into the rational design and facile synthesis of bismuth based semiconductor photocatalysts.

Keywords: Bi metal; Bi(2)O(2)CO(3); In-situ deposition; Photocatalytic water splitting; SPR effect.