Engineering an Interfacial Facet of S-Scheme Heterojunction Ternary Nanocomposite for Enhanced Photocatalytic Activity

Abstract

The treatment of contaminated water has become the biggest challenge nowadays. Thus, the removal of organic pollutants from the waste water via the use of photocatalysts is in progress. This study entails the synthesis and characterization of two-dimensional novel S Scheme binary and ternary heterojunction photocatalysts for the photodegradation of 4- nitrophenol from wastewater. The 2-D Bi2O3/CdS and MoS2/Bi2O3/CdS S-Scheme heterojunctions were synthesized successfully via a solvothermal approach. Their structure, morphology, valency, composition, and light absorbance were characterized by XRD, HR TEM, SEM, EDX, XPS, UV-VIS spectroscopy. The photodegradation was performed using a 1000W Xe lamp as a light source and results obtained showed that Bi2O3/CdS showed 86% degradation of 4-nitrophenol while the MoS2/Bi2O3/CdS showed excellent activity with degradation of 99% was achieved in 120 mins. These results are far better than the pure catalyst activity and the heterojunction showed exceptional results that are not known in the literature.