Prussian blue-conjugated ZnO nanoparticles for near-infrared light-responsive photocatalysis

Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Title

Materials Today Energy

Volume

23

Publisher

Elsevier

School

School of Engineering

RAS ID

44800

Funders

Australian Research Council

Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province, China

Grant Number

ARC Number : DP200103332, DP200103315

Comments

Fatima, H., Azhar, M. R., Khiadani, M., Zhong, Y., Wang, W., Su, C., & Shao, Z. (2022). Prussian blue-conjugated ZnO nanoparticles for near-infrared light-responsive photocatalysis. Materials Today Energy, 23, article 100895.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mtener.2021.100895

Abstract

Zinc oxide (ZnO)-based photocatalysis has great potential in wastewater treatment, but its photocatalytic performance suffers from the limitation of low-wavelength photon absorption. Herein, a near-infrared-responsive photocatalyst is developed to tackle this challenge, which is composed of Prussian blue (PB) dye conjugated iron oxide-zinc oxide hybrid nanoparticles (Fe3O4@PB@ZnO) with spherical morphology (∼14 nm). Fe3O4@PB@ZnO shows a higher-wavelength absorbance region centered at 781 nm as compared with PB-free Fe3O4-ZnO composite (Fe3O4@ZnO, 494 nm) and pristine ZnO (361 nm). The inclusion of a charge transfer band (FeII-CN-FeIII) after the conjugation of PB is responsible for such a profound absorbance shift. A comparative study of three samples as potential photocatalysts is performed in terms of the methylene blue degradation, which is found to be in an order of Fe3O4@PB@ZnO ˃ Fe3O4@ZnO ˃ ZnO. The enhanced photocatalysis rate of Fe3O4@PB@ZnO is credited to the lower bandgap of 1.2 eV from the presence of PB with low bandgap, retarded the recombination rate of electron-hole pair to produce enough reactive oxygen species from the rich surface vacancies and hole scavenging properties of PB. A plausible degradation mechanism of photocatalysis is proposed, revealing the singlet oxygen as the central point of enhanced performance.

DOI

10.1016/j.mtener.2021.100895

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