Visible-light S-scheme heterojunction of copper bismuthate quantum dots decorated Titania-spindles for exceptional tetracycline degradation

Qi Xiong; Quanquan Shi; Xinrui Gu; Xianliang Sheng; Yanxin Sun; Huiming Shi; Liangliang Xu; Gao Li

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2023.10.141

Visible-light S-scheme heterojunction of copper bismuthate quantum dots decorated Titania-spindles for exceptional tetracycline degradation

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2024 Jan 15;654(Pt B):1365-1377. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.10.141. Epub 2023 Oct 29.

Authors

Qi Xiong¹, Quanquan Shi², Xinrui Gu³, Xianliang Sheng⁴, Yanxin Sun¹, Huiming Shi¹, Liangliang Xu⁵, Gao Li⁶

Affiliations

¹ College of Science, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot 010018, China.
² College of Science, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot 010018, China; Inner Mongolia Key Laboratory of Soil Quality and Nutrient Resource & Key Laboratory of Agricultural Ecological Security and Green Development at Universities of Inner Mongolia Autonomous, Hohhot 010018, China. Electronic address: qqshi@imau.edu.cn.
³ State Key Laboratory of Catalysis, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian 116023, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
⁴ College of Science, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot 010018, China. Electronic address: shengxl_1969@163.com.
⁵ Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea. Electronic address: xuliang@kaist.ac.kr.
⁶ State Key Laboratory of Catalysis, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian 116023, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. Electronic address: gaoli@dicp.ac.cn.

PMID: 37918096
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.10.141

Abstract

The rational heterojunctions for antibiotics degradation have sparked significant attention in wastewater purification. In this study, we report a unique S-scheme photocatalytic system by in-situ growth of CuBi₂O₄ quantum dots (QDs) onto {101} facet of TiO₂ spindles (TiO₂-P) via hydrothermal transformation of Na-titanate nanotubes, which is observed by transmission electron microscopy technology. The CuBi₂O₄/TiO₂-P effectively achieves photo-degradation of tetracycline (TC) using visible light (e.g. an 82% TC degradation efficiency at 60 min), which is attributed to the promotion of the charge separation and retaining strong redox capacity at the heterojunction interfaces via the active species of O₂^-, OH, and h⁺. Moreover, density functional theory (DFT) calculations show that a built-in electric field forms at the interface of the S-scheme heterojunction. In all, this work introduces a straightforward in-situ hydrothermal growth method to construct S-scheme photocatalysts for effective water treatment.

Keywords: CuBi(2)O(4)/TiO(2); Photocatalysis; S-scheme heterojunction; Tetracycline degradation; Visible light.