Environment-friendly organic coordination design of Z-scheme heterojunction N-BOB/BiOIO3 for efficient LED-light-driven photocatalytic and electrochemical performance

Abstract

As the climate seriously changes, ecofriendly nanomaterials have attracted tremendous interest in renewable energy as photocatalysis. Herein, we designed a new green bismuth-based Z-scheme Bi₂O₂²⁺ slabs coordinate with 2-aminoterephthalic acid (N-BOB)/BiOIO₃ through a simple anion exchange and postsynthetic hydrothermal reaction. FTIR, XRD, FESEM and TEM were employed to characterize the functional groups, structure, and morphologies. UV-DRS revealed the difference in band energy of the N-BOB and N-BOB/BiOIO₃. Toward Rh B, TC and CIP degradation tests, 1-N-BOB/BiOIO₃ manifests the best photocatalytic degradation (52.3%, 63.6% and 30.2%) efficiency. Also, 1-N-BOB/BiOIO₃ possesses high durability in photocatalytic reactions and can inhibit 32.3% of bacterial growth. The results indicate that the synergistic effect between surface amine groups and Z-scheme heterojunction harvests light absorption to increase solar-to-energy (STE) efficiency, accelerate the charge separation, and increases the active sites with high photoredox potential, thus improving the photocatalytic performance. ROS scavenging tests further elucidated that photogenerated holes and hydroxyl radicals play a critical role. In addition, the surface amine groups and benzene rings can be utilized for supercapacitors and other multidisciplinary applications. 0.5 N-BOB/BiOIO₃/GO impressively showed 5 times higher specific capacitance than pure GO electrode. We hope this work provides new sight into designing green nanomaterials to relieve environmental pollution and leave behind a clean future for the next generation.

Keywords: Electrochemistry; Green and multifunctional design; N-BOB/BiOIO(3); Photocatalysts; Z-scheme heterojunction.