Two-Dimensional Porous PdO/Co3O4 Nanocomposites for Highly Effective Photocatalysts Under Visible-Light Exposure

Recently, great efforts have been dedicated to the construct and design of low cost and high-performance photocatalysts for the degradation of organic contaminants. Herein, two-dimensional (2D) mesoporous Co3O4 decorated by PdO nanoparticles as an outstanding photocatalyst were fabricated to degrade Foron Blue (FB) dye with high stability and photocatalytic performances. The obtained Co3O4 NPs are spherical with few cubic morphology and uniform distribution (25-50 nm), and the particle of PdO NPs are highly dispersed with around 5 nm in a spherical shape. The synthesized 2D-PdO/Co3O4 photocatalysts exhibited mesostructure with a large surface area of 155 m(2) g(-1), which provided more active sites for FB dye adsorption, and contributed to the creation of (OH)-O-center dot radicals. Complete FB dye degradation (100%) was achieved over 0.9% PdO/Co3O4 nanocomposite after 50 min illumination time. The photocatalytic performance for FB degradation over mesoporous PdO/Co3O4 photocatalyst enhanced two times larger than that pristine Co3O4 NPs. The degradation rate of FB dye over 0.9%PdO/Co3O4 photocatalyst (10 mu mol L-1 min(-1)) are larger 2.4 times than that of pristine Co3O4 NPs (4.10 mu mol L-1 min(-1)). The superior photocatalytic performance of PdO/Co3O4 nanocomposites was interpreted by the synergistic effect between PdO and Co3O4 and efficaciously reduced the recombination of photoinduced electron-hole. The 2D-PdO/Co3O4 photocatalysts revealed excellent photocatalytic ability with superior long-duration stability for five recycles. This development is extended our outlook for the application and design of 2D mesoporous photocatalysts in environment and energy areas.

Automated summary

In this study, a high-stability and high-performance photocatalyst was fabricated by decorating two-dimensional mesoporous Co3O4 nanosheets with PdO nanoparticles for the degradation of organic contaminants. The PdO/Co3O4 nanocomposites exhibited outstanding photocatalytic performance and long-term stability.