Hydrothermal Microwave Synthesis of Co<sub>3</sub>O<sub>4</sub>/In<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> Nanostructures for Photoelectrocatalytic Reduction of Cr(VI)
Jiejie Nan, Sijia Guo, Dalal Alhashmialameer, Qingming He, Yinuo Meng, Ruixiang Ge, Salah M. El‐Bahy, Nithesh Naik, Vignesh Murugadoss, Mina Huang, Ben Bin Xu, Qian Shao, Zhanhu Guo
Abstract
Co3O4/In2O3 nanocomposites were prepared via a microwave-hydrothermal method and directly used as photoanodes for the photoelectrocatalytic (PEC) process to reduce Cr(VI). The as-prepared Co3O4/In2O3 composites show a rod-like structure, which is composed of nanoparticles. The PEC experiments indicated that after 120 min of irradiation with 0.7 V bias voltage and visible light, the Cr(VI) reduction efficiency of Co3O4/In2O3 composites in aqueous solution was 100%, which was superior to the samples prepared by other methods. Moreover, the Co3O4/In2O3 composite still had a high catalytic activity after five runs of PEC experiments. Elimination experiments demonstrate that photo-generated electrons (e–) performed a key role in the catalytic reduction of Cr(VI). The significantly improved PEC performance can be attributed to the bias voltage and the p-n heterojunction formed between Co3O4 and In2O3. Therefore, Co3O4/In2O3 nanocomposites have a considerable potential for the PEC reduction of Cr(VI).