title: Novel Cu₂O quantum dots coupled flower-like BiOBr for enhanced photocatalytic degradation of organic contaminant.
abstract: Here we report a highly efficient novel photocatalyst consisting of Cu2O quantum dots (QDs) incorporated into three-dimensional (3D) flower-like hierarchical BiOBr (hereafter designated QDs-Cu2O/BiOBr), which were synthesized via a simple reductive solution chemistry route and applied to decontaminate the hazardous wastewater containing phenol and organic dyes. The deposition of Cu2O QDs onto the surface of the BiOBr was confirmed by structure and composition characterizations. The QDs-Cu2O/BiOBr composites exhibited superior activity for organic contaminant degradation under visible light and 3 wt% QDs-Cu2O/BiOBr composite showed the highest degrade rate for phenol and methylene blue (MB), which was 11.8 times and 1.4 times than that of pure BiOBr, indicated the QDs-Cu2O/BiOBr composite has the great potential application in purifying hazardous organic contaminant. The incorporated Cu2O QDs played an important role in improving the photocatalytic performance, due to the enhancement of visible light absorption efficiency as well as the efficient separation of the photogenerated charge carriers originating from the intimately contacted interface and the well-aligned band-structures, which was confirmed by the results of PL, photocurrent and EIS measurements. The possible photocatalytic mechanism was proposed based on the experiments and theoretical results.
authors.affiliation: College of Chemical Engineering, Hebei United University, Tangshan 063009, PR China.
authors.forename: Wenquan
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Cui
authors.affiliation: College of Chemical Engineering, Hebei United University, Tangshan 063009, PR China.
authors.forename: Weijia
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: An
authors.affiliation: College of Chemical Engineering, Hebei United University, Tangshan 063009, PR China.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: College of Chemical Engineering, Hebei United University, Tangshan 063009, PR China.
authors.forename: Jinshan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: College of Chemical Engineering, Hebei United University, Tangshan 063009, PR China. Electronic address: liangyh@heuu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Yinghua
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liang
mesh_terms: D001729:Bismuth / Q000737:chemistry*; D003300:Copper / Q000737:chemistry*; D015386:Hazardous Substances / Q000737:chemistry; D008751:Methylene Blue / Q000737:chemistry; D008855:Microscopy, Electron, Scanning; D019800:Phenol / Q000737:chemistry; D010782:Photolysis; D045663:Quantum Dots; D014865:Waste Disposal, Fluid / Q000379:methods; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D015386:Hazardous Substances; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical; D019800:Phenol; D003300:Copper; C542279:bismuth oxybromide; D008751:Methylene Blue; C000520:cuprous oxide; D001729:Bismuth
keywords: BiOBr; Cu(2)O; Photocatalysis; Quantum dots