Sustainable visible-light-driven Z-scheme porous Zn3(VO4)2/g-C3N4 heterostructure toward highly photoredox pollutant and mechanism insight

• Published in: Journal of the Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers 2017-09, Vol.78, p.517-529
• Main Authors: Jiang, Yinhua, Liu, Peipei, Tian, Shujun, Liu, Yan, Peng, Zhiyuan, Li, Fan, Ni, Liang, Liu, Zhanchao
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: G-C3N4 nanosheet; Hybrid; Visible-light photocatalytic activity; Z-scheme; Zn3(VO4)2 porous marigold flower
• ISSN: 1876-1070; 1876-1089
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jtice.2017.06.032

• ZV-CN heterostructure was first constructed via impregnation–calcination method.• Proposed Z-scheme mechanism elaborates the high-efficiency charge carrier transfer.• ZV-CN hybrid possesses higher redox ability than ZOV-CN system.• The nanocomposite preserves excellent photostability and reusability. A simple impregnation–calcination method has been proposed to produce excellent photocatalytic Z-scheme Zn3(VO4)2 porous nanoflower/g-C3N4 nanosheet (ZV-CN) heterostructure photocatalyst. The optical, morphological and photocatalytical properties were investigated in details. Interestingly, after coupling Zn3(VO4)2 with g-C3N4, the hybrids exhibited the extended spectral response and obviously enhanced photocatalytic MB dye mineralization activity. Particularly, the high stable and reusable 5-ZV-CN photocatalyst possessed excellent photocatalytic performance (95.45%) for MB degradation as compared to g-C3N4 (57.66%) and Zn3(VO4)2 (36.71%), which could be attributed to the drastically improved separation efficiency of photoinduced carries, the stronger oxidation and reduction ability via direct Z-scheme transfer as well as the porous surfaces. This present work provides a new kind of g-C3N4 based Z-scheme heterojunctions with high photocatalytic activity. [Display omitted]