Flexible Carbon-Fiber/Semimetal Bi Nanosheet Arrays as Separable and Recyclable Plasmonic Photocatalysts and Photoelectrocatalysts

Yanling Yang; Huajun Chen; Xinxin Zou; Xiao-Lei Shi; Wei-Di Liu; Lei Feng; Guoquan Suo; Xiaojiang Hou; Xiaohui Ye; Li Zhang; Chenghua Sun; Haisheng Li; Changqing Wang; Zhi-Gang Chen

doi:10.1021/acsami.0c05695

Flexible Carbon-Fiber/Semimetal Bi Nanosheet Arrays as Separable and Recyclable Plasmonic Photocatalysts and Photoelectrocatalysts

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2020 Jun 3;12(22):24845-24854. doi: 10.1021/acsami.0c05695. Epub 2020 May 19.

Authors

Yanling Yang¹, Huajun Chen^{1

2}, Xinxin Zou¹, Xiao-Lei Shi³, Wei-Di Liu⁴, Lei Feng¹, Guoquan Suo¹, Xiaojiang Hou¹, Xiaohui Ye¹, Li Zhang¹, Chenghua Sun^{5

6}, Haisheng Li⁷, Changqing Wang⁸, Zhi-Gang Chen^{3

4}

Affiliations

¹ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Green Preparation and Functionalization for Inorganic Materials, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi'an 710021, P. R. China.
² Department of Environment and Chemistry, Luoyang Institute of Science and Technology, Luoyang 471023, P. R. China.
³ Centre for Future Materials, University of Southern Queensland, Springfield Central, Ipswich, QLD 4300, Australia.
⁴ School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia.
⁵ Department of Chemistry and Biotechnology, and Center for Translational Atomaterials, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, VIC 3122, Australia.
⁶ School of Chemical Engineering and Energy Technology, Dongguan University of Technology, Dongguan 523808, P. R. China.
⁷ School of Physics and Engineering, Henan University of Science and Technology, Luoyang 471023, P. R. China.
⁸ Department of Mathematics and Physics, Luoyang Institute of Science and Technology, Luoyang 471023, P. R. China.

PMID: 32374583
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.0c05695

Abstract

In this work, we prepared flexible carbon-fiber/semimetal Bi nanosheet arrays from solvothermal-synthesized carbon-fiber/Bi₂O₂CO₃ nanosheet arrays via a reductive calcination process. The flexible carbon-fiber/semimetal Bi nanosheet arrays can function as photocatalysts and photoelectrocatalysts for 2,4-dinitorphenol oxidation. Compared with carbon-fiber/Bi₂O₂CO₃ nanosheet arrays, the newly designed flexible carbon-fiber/semimetal Bi nanosheet arrays show enhanced ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) light absorption efficiency and photocurrent, photocatalytic, and photoelectrocatalytic activities. Photocatalytic analyses indicate that the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) of semimetal Bi occurs under solar-simulated light irradiation during the photocatalytic process. The carbon-fiber traps the hot electrons exerted from the SPR of semimetal Bi and creates holes in the semimetal Bi nanosheets, which boosts the photocatalytic activity of the carbon fiber through plasmonic sensitization. Both photocatalytic experiments and density functional theory (DFT) calculations indicate that the electrons transferred to the carbon fiber and the holes created in semimetal Bi contribute to the formation of •O₂^- and •OH, respectively. The synergistic effect between electrocatalysis and photocatalysis under the solar-simulated light results in almost complete degradation of 2,4-dinitorphenol during the photoelectrocatalytic process. This work realizes a non-noble-metal plasmonic catalyst and provides a new avenue for the commercialization of photocatalysis and photoelectrocatalysis using the separable and recyclable carbon-fiber/semimetal Bi nanosheet arrays in the environment-related field.

Keywords: carbon fiber; nanosheet; photoelectrocatalysis; semimetal Bi; surface plasmon resonance.