High concentration of methyl orange elimination by targeted construction of an α-Bi2O3/Ph–CC–Cu Z-scheme

Abstract

We anchored Ph–CC–Cu, a type of metal organic molecule, onto the surface of α-Bi₂O₃ nanoparticles (NPs) to efficiently eliminate a high concentration of methyl orange (MO) in waste water. With the optimal α-Bi₂O₃/Ph–CC–Cu hybrid, the degradable concentration of MO was 3 × 10⁻⁴ M, which is 5 times higher than that in most of the previously reported photocatalytic researches (6 × 10⁻⁵ M). The photocatalytic activity of the α-Bi₂O₃/Ph–CC–Cu hybrid in this work even exceeds that of commercial P25 for MO degradation under full spectrum light. Furthermore, a targeted Z-scheme construction was proposed and demonstrated using photocatalytically generated reactive oxygen species (ROS), photocurrent densities, fluorescence spectra and photocatalytic reduction of AgNO₃ experiment. This work not only reported an efficient hybrid for MO elimination with high concentration in waste water, but also provided new explanations for the Z-scheme mechanism.