Construction dual vacancies to regulate the energy band structure of ZnIn2S4 for enhanced visible light-driven photodegradation of 4-NP

Guanhua Zhang; Jieyi Yang; Zhiling Huang; Guoxiang Pan; Bo Xie; Zheming Ni; Shengjie Xia

doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2022.129916

Construction dual vacancies to regulate the energy band structure of ZnIn₂S₄ for enhanced visible light-driven photodegradation of 4-NP

J Hazard Mater. 2023 Jan 5:441:129916. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2022.129916. Epub 2022 Sep 6.

Authors

Guanhua Zhang¹, Jieyi Yang², Zhiling Huang³, Guoxiang Pan⁴, Bo Xie², Zheming Ni², Shengjie Xia⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, College of Chemical Engineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, 18 Chaowang Road, Hangzhou 310014, PR China; School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Linyi University, Linyi 276005, Shandong, PR China.
² Department of Chemistry, College of Chemical Engineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, 18 Chaowang Road, Hangzhou 310014, PR China.
³ Department of Life and Health Sciences, Huzhou College, 313000 Huzhou, PR China.
⁴ School of Engineering, Huzhou University, 759 East Erhuan Road, Huzhou 313000, PR China.
⁵ Department of Chemistry, College of Chemical Engineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, 18 Chaowang Road, Hangzhou 310014, PR China. Electronic address: xiasj@zjut.edu.cn.

PMID: 36103766
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2022.129916

Abstract

Most of the intrinsic photocatalysts with visible light response can only generate one active radical due to the limitation of their band structures, which is immediate cause limiting their photocatalytic degradation performance. In this work, ZnIn₂S₄ with Zn vacancy and S vacancy (V_Zn+S-ZnIn₂S₄) was prepared for the first time. As expected, the V_Zn+S-ZnIn₂S₄ exhibits remarkable photocatalytic performance for 4-Nitrophenol (4-NP) degradation under visible light and the apparent rate constant is about 11 times that of pristine ZnIn₂S₄. The construction of dual vacancies can regulate the energy band structure of the ZnIn₂S₄, enabling it to generate •OH and •O₂^- simultaneously. Meanwhile, dual vacancies system can also extremely improve the separation efficiency of carriers. It is worth noting that Zn vacancy and S vacancy can capture photogenerated holes and photogenerated electrons, respectively, which is beneficial for photogenerated carriers to participate in radical generation reactions. In addition, a possible 4-NP degradation pathway was proposed based on HPLC-MS analysis. This work provides a new way to construct photocatalysts for photodegradation of pollutants in wastewater.

Keywords: 4-Nitrophenol; Degradation; Dual vacancies; Photocatalysis; ZnIn(2)S(4).