Ag(I)-Hived Fullerene Microcube as an Enhanced Catalytic Substrate for the Reduction of 4-Nitrophenol and the Photodegradation of Orange G Dye

Abstract

We report a facile approach to fabricate an Ag-embedded fullerene (C 60 ) catalyst by the chemical reduction of the AgNO 3 complex encapsulated fullerene microcrystal, which showed an enhanced catalytic reduction of 4-nitrophenol because of the strong absorption and propagation of H 2 along the fullerene surface. With the aid of visible-light radiation, photodegradation of orange G dye is achieved through the formation of an electron donor−acceptor dyad between plasmon Ag nanostructures and fullerene molecules, which effectively offsets the "electron−hole" recombination. Neither Ag nanoparticle nor fullerene crystal used in isolation could perform this chemical conversion, implying that the metal−fullerene hybrid structure is imperative for performing the catalytic reaction. The obtained Ag-embedded fullerene crystal is characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), associated energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) imaging, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and demonstrates that the present hybrid materials would add a supplemental member to a family of photocatalysts toward the organic synthesis and wastewater remediation.

Regulation of the Volume Flow Rate of Aqueous Methyl Blue Solution and the Wettability of CuO/ZnO Nanorods to Improve the Photodegradation Performance of Related Microfluidic Reactors

“…Due to their excellent advantages like complete mineralization of pollutants, no requirement for the disposal of sludge, and low energy consumption, several photocatalytic degradation techniques with dispersive nanostructured catalyst or substrate-supported nanostructured catalyst or catalyst-coated macroscale channel, or nanostructured catalyst-based microfluidic reactor have been put forward to carbonize relevant organic species in wastewater. Of all these photocatalytic degradation techniques, the nanostructured catalyst-based microfluidic reactor has been more often used thanks to its large surface-to-volume ratio, short diffusion distance and rapid mass transport process of molecules from an aqueous solution to catalysts, high illumination homogeneity, and accurate irradiation on nanostructured catalysts, no need of postseparation and recovery which are common for suspended catalysts, and 2 orders of magnitude higher photocatalytic efficiency. − The nanostructured catalysts mainly include metal oxide or sulfide semiconductors (that is, BiVO 4 , ZnO, , TiO 2 , , ZnS, and WO 3 ), noble metal-doped metal oxide semiconductors − (for instance, Ag/ZnO, Ga/ZnO, and Au/ZnO), and surface-sensitized metal oxide semiconductors (namely, C 60 /ZnO, Graphene/ZnO, and CuO/ZnO). Owing to the unique structure of the p-n heterojunction and the effectual inhibition of the combination of photogenerated electrons and holes, the nanostructured CuO/ZnONRs have excellent photodegradation performance and thus have been widely employed to construct various microfluidic reactors. − In regard to the evaluation of the photodegradation performance of these nanostructured catalyst-based microfluidic reactors, the experimental and numerical routes and eq have been invariably used in the literature, − where K A (min –1 ) is initial rate constant, K a (min –1 ) is kinetic adsorption rate constant, and K Lev (min –1 ) is mass transport-controlled constant.…”

Direct transformation of AgNO3 complex encapsulated Fullerene (C60) microcrystal on solid silver Nitrate Crystal without organic Ligands

“…The rational explanation is the Ag + oxidization during exposure in atmosphere and under light radiation, especially for the Ag + ‐fullerene conjugated structure, which promotes the charge transfer and facilitate the oxidizing reaction. [ 23,24 ] Thus, the escalated oxygen peak, relative to a feeble nitrogen signal was observed in the resulting EDX spectrum. This is further verified by the following XPS survey (Figure S3), in which N atom also raises a rather weak EDX response, relative to its close neighbor, oxygen atom.…”

Cu-Based Catalysts Supported on H3PO4-Activated Coffee Biochar for Selective Reduction of Nitroaromatics

“…Different nitroaromatics could be smoothly reduced with good to excellent yield using the present Cu/PBCR-600 catalyst, as shown in Table and Figure S10. 4-Nitrophenol, as a kind of toxic and hard-degradable organic compounds, − could be smoothly converted to 4-aminophenol with 98.5% yield over Cu/PBCR-600 (Table , entry 1). Figure S10a,b traces the reduction of 4-nitrophenol.…”