BiOI@CeO₂@Ti₃C₂ MXene composite S-scheme photocatalyst with excellent bacteriostatic properties

As an influential antifouling material, photocatalytic materials have drawn attention increasingly over recent years owing to their potential bacteriostatic property in the domain of marine antifouling. Herein, a flower-like BiOI@CeO₂@Ti₃C₂ S-scheme photocatalyst was contrived and prepared by hydrothermal method. The innovative combination of Ti₃C₂ and narrow band gap semiconductor BiOI was implemented to modify CeO₂ and the photocatalytic bacteriostatic mechanism of BiOI@CeO₂@Ti₃C₂ was elucidated. Schottky junction was formed between CeO₂ and Ti₃C₂, and a p-n junction was formed between CeO₂ and BiOI. By photoelectrochemical characterization, BCT-10 exhibits the best photoelectrochemical performance of which photogenerated carrier transport can be performed more readily at 10 % CeO₂@Ti₃C₂ addition. 99.76 % and 99.89 % of photocatalytic bacteriostatic efficiency of BCT-10 against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus were implemented respectively, which were 2.98 and 3.07 times higher than that of pure CeO₂. The ternary heterojunction can suppress photogenerated electron-hole complexes more effectively and enhance the photocatalytic bacteriostatic effect of CeO₂, which also provided a new concept to the further broadened application of CeO₂ in the marine bacteriostatic and antifouling field.