posted on 2021-10-05, 12:41authored byMary O. Olagunju, Elsayed M. Zahran, Elnaz Zeynaloo, Dharmendra Shukla, Joshua L. Cohn, Bapurao Surnar, Shanta Dhar, Leonidas G. Bachas, Marc R. Knecht
The development of photocatalytic
materials that exploit visible
light is imperative for their sustainable application in environmental
remediation. While a variety of approaches have been attempted, facile
routes to achieve such structures remain limited. In this contribution,
a direct route for the production of a SrTiO3/BiOBr/Pd
heterojunction is presented that employs a low temperature, sustainable
production method. The materials were produced in a two-step process
wherein BiOBr nanoplates are fabricated in the presence of the SrTiO3 nanospheres, generating a highly integrated composite material.
Pd nanoparticle surface decoration was subsequently employed to facilitate
and enhance charge separation lifetimes to optimize reactivity. The
structures were fully characterized via a suite of approaches to confirm
the final material composition and arrangement. Their reactivity was
explored for the degradation of both colored and colorless model environmental
pollutants, where the SrTiO3/BiOBr/Pd demonstrated significant
reactivity using visible light, leading to substrate degradation in
<10 min in some cases. The enhanced reactivity was attributed to
the significant integration between materials, facilitating electron
transfer. Such studies provide key information for the development
of new materials with optimized visible-light-driven photocatalytic
reactivity for sustainable environmental remediation.