Construction of Core–shell Sb<sub>2</sub>s<sub>3</sub>@Cds Nanorod with Enhanced Heterointerface Interaction for Chromium‐Containing Wastewater Treatment
Wei Li, Jiayuan Li, Tenghao Ma, Guocheng Liao, Fanfan Gao, Wen Duan, Ke-ling Luo, Chuanyi Wang
Abstract
Abstract How to collaboratively reduce Cr(VI) and break Cr(III) complexes is a technical challenge to solve chromium‐containing wastewater (CCW) pollution. Solar photovoltaic (SPV) technology based on semiconductor materials is a potential strategy to solve this issue. Sb 2 S 3 is a typical semiconductor material with total visible‐light harvesting capacity, but its large‐sized structure highly aggravates disordered photoexciton migration, accelerating the recombination kinetics and resulting low‐efficient photon utilization. Herein, the uniform mesoporous CdS shell is in situ formed on the surface of Sb 2 S 3 nanorods (NRs) to construct the core–shell Sb 2 S 3 @CdS heterojunction with high BET surface area and excellent near‐infrared light harvesting capacity via a surface cationic displacement strategy, and density functional theory thermodynamically explains the breaking of SbS bonds and formation of CdS bonds according to the bond energy calculation. The SbSCd bonding interaction and van der Waals force significantly enhance the stability and synergy of Sb 2 S 3 /CdS heterointerface throughout the entire surface of Sb 2 S 3 NRs, promoting the Sb 2 S 3 ‐to‐CdS electron transfer due to the formation of built‐in electric field. Therefore, the optimized Sb 2 S 3 @CdS catalyst achieves highly enhanced simulated sunlight‐driven Cr(VI) reduction (0.154 min −1 ) and decomplexation of complexed Cr(III) in weakly acidic condition, resulting effective CCW treatment under co‐action of photoexcited electrons and active radicals. This study provides a high‐performance heterostructured catalyst for effective CCW treatment by SPV technology.