Interface engineering: Surface hydrophilic regulation of LaFeO3 towards enhanced visible light photocatalytic
Zhou Chen1, Tingting Fan2, Qiuyue Zhang2
1National Engineering Laboratory for Green Chemical Productions of Alcohols, Ethers and Esters, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, PR China; Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 1H9, Canada.
Abstract:
The perovskite-type lanthanum ferrite, LaFeO3, has emerged as one of the most promising candidates for highly efficient photocatalytic materials. However, the intrinsic drawbacks of inferior surface hydrophilicity (related to the absorption and transport of water), weak visible-light adsorption (related to the absorption of photon) and poor charge separation efficiency (related to the active substance that can actually participate in the reaction) seriously limit its photocatalytic efficiency. Herein, LaFeO3 is encapsulated by conductive polyaniline (PANI) aerogel on the surface to simultaneous moderate these deficiencies. The ameliorative surface properties and interface effect between LaFeO3 and PANI result in elevated effects for water adsorption and diffusion, visible-light (photon) adsorption and photo-induced carries transfer, and the coated LaFeO3 exhibits improved photocatalytic hydrogen evolution performance under visible light. In addition, after continuously testing, the coated LaFeO3 still shows superior stability with nearly negligible decay. Importantly, this model can enrich to other inorganic oxide based semiconductor to modulate the surface properties and charge transport behaviour, and hence improve the visible light photocatalytic performance.
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