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Enhanced visible-light photocatalytic activity of hydrogenated Fe3O4 nanooctahedrons with {111} polar facets in degradation of Basic Fuchsin and the photocatalytic mechanism

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Abstract

Fe3O4 nanooctahedrons with exposed {111} crystallographic planes have been synthesized by employing Cl− ion as a control agent of crystal facet. The Fe3O4 nanooctahedron exhibits higher photocatalytic activity in degradation of basic fuchsin (BF), compared with Fe3O4 commercial powder. And the photocatalytic activity is significantly improved by removing Cl− ions and -OH groups at the (111) surface via hydrogenation. The exposed clean {111} crystal planes are evidenced to be the photocatalytic reactive crystal facets. Based on the atomic arrangement of Fe3O4 {111} crystallographic planes, we found the exposed {111} crystallographic planes are polar Fe-Fe3O4 (111) and O-Fe3O4 \((\overline{1}\overline{1}\overline{1})\) surfaces. And thus, we present a photocatalytic mechanism of the spontaneous electric field between polar Fe-Fe3O4 (111) and O-Fe3O4 \((\overline{1}\overline{1}\overline{1})\) planes driving photogenerated charge separation. The photoinduced redox reactions occur at the Fe-Fe3O4 (111) and O-Fe3O4 \((\overline{1}\overline{1}\overline{1})\)crystal planes, respectively. The good separation of photogenerated charges results in the excellent photocatalytic performance. The findings suggest that this charge separation model is a universal photocatalytic mechanism. This mechanism can deepen the comprehension of the crystal plane-dependent photocatalytic performances and contributes to the rational design and preparation of high-performance photocatalysts.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants. 52172148, 51872178 and 51702204), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. GK202003046, No. 2020TS103), the 111 Project (B14041), DNL Cooperation Fund CAS (DNL180311), and the National Key Research Program of China (2016YFA0202403).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shaanxi Key Laboratory for Advanced Energy Devices; Shaanxi Engineering Laboratory for Advanced Energy Technology; Key Laboratory of Macromolecular Science of Shaanxi Province, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an, 710119, China

    Xiaohua Meng, Junyi Guo, Le Zhang, Chen Qi, Yali Zhou, Bin Liu & Heqing Yang

  2. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xian Yang Normal University, Xianyang, 712000, China

    Xiaohua Meng

  3. Key Laboratory of Applied Surface and Colloid Chemistry, National Ministry of Education; Shaanxi Key Laboratory for Advanced Energy Devices; Shaanxi Engineering Laboratory for Advanced Energy Technology; School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an, 710119, China

    Shengzhong Liu

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Contributions

HQY and XHM conceived the idea and designed the experiments. XHM, JYG, LZ, CQ, YLZ, and BL performed the experiments. XHM, HQY, and SZL wrote the manuscript. All authors provided critical comments and analyses.

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Correspondence to Heqing Yang.

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Meng, X., Guo, J., Zhang, L. et al. Enhanced visible-light photocatalytic activity of hydrogenated Fe3O4 nanooctahedrons with {111} polar facets in degradation of Basic Fuchsin and the photocatalytic mechanism. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 33, 13095–13109 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-022-08249-y

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