The solar-to-fuel conversion using a photocatalyst is an ideal method to solve the energy crisis and global warming. In this contribution, photocatalytic H 2 production and organic pollutant removal using g-C 3 N 4 / CuS composite was demonstrated. Well dispersed CuS nanoparticles (NPs) with a size of about 10 nm were successfully grown on the surface of g-C 3 N 4 nanosheet via a facile hydrothermal method. The asprepared g-C 3 N 4 /CuS nanocomposite at an optimized loading exhibited a much higher visible light photoactivity, giving up to 2.7 times and 1.5 times enhancements in comparison to pure g-C 3 N 4 for photocatalytic H 2 production and methylene orange (MO) degradation, respectively. These enhanced photocatalytic activities are attributed to the interfacial transfer of photogenerated electrons and holes between g-C 3 N 4 and CuS, which leads to effective charge separation on both parts. That is, under the visible light irradiation, electrons in the valence band (VB) of g-C 3 N 4 can directly transfer to the CuS NPs, which can act as an electron sink and co-catalyst to promote the separation and transfer of photogenerated electrons, thus significantly improving the photocatalytic efficiency. Fig. 4 (A) The photodegradation activities of MO as a function of time over different photocatalysts under visible light irradiation (>420 nm), (B) the value of the rate constant k of the photodegradation of MO in the presence of as-prepared photocatalysts, (C) cycling runs of g-C 3 N 4 / 0.5 wt% CuS photocatalyst in the photodegradation of MO under visible light irradiation (>420 nm), and (D) photodegradation of MO in the presence of three types of scavengers and g-C 3 N 4 /0.5 wt% CuS photocatalyst under visible light irradiation (>420 nm).This journal is
Highly uniform and well-dispersed LuPO4 hollow nanospheres were successfully synthesized via a facile solution-phase method by utilizing the colloidal spheres of Lu(OH)CO3 as a sacrificial template and NH4H2PO4 as a phosphorus source. X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier transformed infrared (FT-IR), photoluminescence (PL) spectra, and cathodoluminescence (CL) spectra were employed to characterize the samples. The result indicates that the hollow LuPO4 spheres can be indexed to the tetragonal phase. The hollow LuPO4 spheres with diameter of about 300 nm become larger with respect to the sacrificial template. The shell of the hollow microspheres consists of numerous nanorods with the thickness of approximately 10 nm. Moreover, the possible formation mechanism of the evolution from Lu(OH)CO3 spheres to the final hollow LuPO4 hollow spheres has been proposed. In addition, upom ultraviolet (UV) and low-voltage electron beams excitation, 5 mol% Eu3+ and 5 mol% Tb3+ doped LuPO4 samples exhibit strong orange-red and green emission, corresponding to the characteristic lines of Eu3+ and Tb3+ under UV excitation, respectively, which may find potential application in the fields of color display and biomedicine.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.