Novel SrTiO3/NaTaO3 and visible-light-driven SrTiO3/NaTaO3:N nano-heterojunctions with high interface-lattice matching for efficient photocatalytic removal of organic dye

Sai Wang; Xuewen Xu; Han Luo; Chaochao Cao; Xiaoyu Song; Jianling Zhao; Jun Zhang; Chengchun Tang

doi:10.1039/c8ra02121j

Novel SrTiO₃/NaTaO₃ and visible-light-driven SrTiO₃/NaTaO₃:N nano-heterojunctions with high interface-lattice matching for efficient photocatalytic removal of organic dye

RSC Adv. 2018 May 24;8(34):19279-19288. doi: 10.1039/c8ra02121j. eCollection 2018 May 22.

Authors

Sai Wang¹, Xuewen Xu¹, Han Luo¹, Chaochao Cao¹, Xiaoyu Song¹, Jianling Zhao¹, Jun Zhang¹, Chengchun Tang¹

Affiliation

¹ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Hebei University of Technology Tianjin 300130 P. R. China xuxuewen@hebut.edu.cn tangcc@hebut.edu.cn.

Abstract

SrTiO₃/NaTaO₃ (STO/NTO) heterojunction photocatalysts were successfully constructed by decorating NaTaO₃ nanocubes with SrTiO₃ nanoparticles via a hydrothermal method. The structure of the perovskites NaTaO₃ and SrTiO₃ bear some resemblance to each other, which increases the interface lattice match for promoting the migration of photogenerated carriers between the STO/NTO interfaces. In comparison to pristine NaTaO₃ and SrTiO₃ samples, the STO/NTO composites exhibited remarkably improved capacity for the degradation of rhodamine B (RhB) under ultraviolet (UV) light (λ < 400 nm) irradiation. Furthermore, the partial replacement of O^2- by N^3- in the TaO ₆ octahedron narrowed the band gap of NaTaO₃, which significantly enhanced the photocatalytic performance of the SrTiO₃/NaTaO₃:N (STO/NTON) heterojunction under visible light (λ > 400 nm). Finally, the possible band structures of the STO/NTO and STO/NTON photocatalysts were proposed, which indicated that an n-n type heterojunction was constructed with a staggered gap for fast separation of photogenerated electron-hole pairs.