Thickness-dependent photocatalytic performance of graphite oxide for degrading organic pollutants under visible light

Photocatalysts use sustainable solar light energy to trigger various catalytic reactions. Metal-free nanomaterials have been suggested as cost-effective and environmentally friendly photocatalysts. In this work, we propose thickness-controlled graphite oxide (GO) as a metal-free photocatalyst, which...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical chemistry chemical physics : PCCP 2016-04, Vol.18 (16), p.1882-1886
Main Authors: Oh, Junghoon, Chang, Yun Hee, Kim, Yong-Hyun, Park, Sungjin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Band theory
Catalysis
Catalysts
Degradation
Environmental Pollutants - chemistry
Graphite - chemistry
Light
Light pollution
Microscopy, Electron, Transmission
Organic Chemicals - chemistry
Oxides
Oxides - chemistry
Photocatalysis
Photocatalysts
Photoelectron Spectroscopy
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Photocatalysts use sustainable solar light energy to trigger various catalytic reactions. Metal-free nanomaterials have been suggested as cost-effective and environmentally friendly photocatalysts. In this work, we propose thickness-controlled graphite oxide (GO) as a metal-free photocatalyst, which is produced by exfoliating thick GO particles via stirring and sonication. All GO samples exhibit photocatalytic activity for degrading an organic pollutant, rhodamine B under visible light, and the thickest sample shows the best catalytic performance. UV-vis-NIR diffuse reflectance absorption spectra indicate that thicker GO samples absorb more vis-NIR light than thinner ones. Density-functional theory calculations show that GO has a much smaller band gap than that of single-layer graphene oxide, and thus suggest that the largely-reduced band gap is responsible for this trend of light absorption. This study reveals that photocatalytic activity of graphite oxide materials for degrading organic pollutants under visible light depends on their thickness.
ISSN:1463-9076
1463-9084
DOI:10.1039/c6cp00582a