title: Photothermal contribution to enhanced photocatalytic performance of graphene-based nanocomposites.
abstract: Photocatalysts possessing high efficiency in degrading aquatic organic pollutants are highly desirable. Although graphene-based nanocomposites exhibit excellent photocatalytic properties, the role of graphene has been largely underestimated. Herein, the photothermal effect of graphene-based nanocomposites is demonstrated to play an important role in the enhanced photocatalytic performance, which has not been considered previously. In our study on degradation of organic pollutants (methylene blue), the contribution of the photothermal effect caused by a nanocomposite consisting of P25 and reduced graphene oxide can be as high as ∼38% in addition to trapping and shuttling photogenerated electrons and increasing both light absorption and pollutant adsorptivity. The result reveals that the photothermal characteristic of graphene-based nanocomposite is vital to photocatalysis. It implies that designing graphene-based nanocomposites with the improved photothermal performance is a promising strategy to acquire highly efficient photocatalytic activity.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Modern Acoustics, MOE, Institute of Acoustics, National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and Department of Physics, Nanjing University , Nanjing, 210093 P. R. China.
authors.forename: Zhixing
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Gan
authors.forename: Xinglong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Ming
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Meng
authors.forename: Xiaobin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Lun
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Paul K
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: Chu
keywords: P25; graphene; photocatalyst; photothermal effect