Hydrothermal preparation of novel rGO-KTaO3 nanocubes with enhanced visible light photocatalytic activity

Chenxiaoning Meng; Keyan Zhao; Mei Yang; Yaohua Liang

doi:10.1016/j.saa.2020.119352

Hydrothermal preparation of novel rGO-KTaO₃ nanocubes with enhanced visible light photocatalytic activity

Spectrochim Acta A Mol Biomol Spectrosc. 2021 Apr 5:250:119352. doi: 10.1016/j.saa.2020.119352. Epub 2021 Jan 2.

Authors

Chenxiaoning Meng¹, Keyan Zhao², Mei Yang³, Yaohua Liang⁴

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Chinese Materia Medica, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing 100700, China. Electronic address: cxnmeng1@163.com.
² Beijing Kang Lisheng Pharmaceutical Technology Development Co., Ltd., Beijing 100000, China.
³ Bioduro, Beijing 100000, China.
⁴ Institute of Chinese Materia Medica, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing 100700, China.

PMID: 33401179
DOI: 10.1016/j.saa.2020.119352

Abstract

In this study, nanocubes KTaO₃-reduced graphene oxide (rGO-KTaO₃) photocatalysts were synthesized by a facile hydrothermal method. Different technical methods were carried out to characterize the as-prepared compounds. UV-Vis spectra show that the absorption sideband of the complexes red-shift to visible light region, which enhances the light utilization. Meanwhile, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) reveals that the graphene oxide (GO) in the composite has been partially reduced, leading to more effective electron transport and thus improving the photocatalytic efficiency. Furthermore, photocatalytic degradation efficiency of Methylene blue (MB) and Rhodamine B (RhB) in the presence of rGO-KTaO₃ reaches 96% and 98%, which is 10 times of that of KTaO₃. The synthesized rGO-KTaO₃ has good photocatalytic properties. Moreover, the stability of this photocatalyst is particularly excellent. The detailed mechanism of photocatalysis has been carefully discussed in the article.

Keywords: Degradation; Nanocubes; Photocatalyst; Visible light; rGO-KTaO(3).