Investigating the synergistic effects in tourmaline/TiO2-based heterogeneous photocatalysis: Underlying mechanism insights
By Li Yu and Cuiping Wang and Feiyang Chen and Jiaqi Zhang and Yuefei Ruan and Jiayao Xu
Published in Journal of Molecular Catalysis A: Chemical
2016
Abstract
We proposed to combine a polarized mineral tourmaline and TiO2 nanosemiconductor to form a hybrid photocatalyst, to simultaneously optimize the photocatalytic efficiency and macroscopic aggregation of nano-TiO2. Photoactivity assessment toward bisphenol A (BPA) degradation indicated the optimal T(20%)-TiO2 catalyst exhibited higher performance than the bare TiO2 or the mechanical mixtures. In view of the reactive species scavenging results and intermediate identification, a hydroxyl radical-initiated oxidation as the dominating \BPA\ decomposition pathway was proposed. The results of photoluminescence spectra and photocurrent measurements along with electrochemical impedance spectra and Mott