A Strategy for One-Pot Conversion of Organic Pollutants into Useful Hydrocarbons through Coupling Photodegradation of MB with Photoreduction of CO2

A strategy was developed to couple photocatalytic oxidation with photocatalytic reduction technology to realize one-pot conversion of MB into hydrocarbons for the first time. In this approach, organic pollutants were first decomposed into CO2 by photodegradation and then the as-obtained CO2 was converted into CH3OH, C2H5OH, and CH4 through photocatalytic reduction of CO2 under solar spectrum irradiation by using GQDs/V-TiO2 catalysts. The experimental results show that 5%GQDs/V-TiO2 has the best photocatalytic activity and the product rates of CH3OH, C2H5OH, and CH4 are 13.24, 5.65, and 0.445 mu mol g(-1) h(-1), respectively. The corresponding apparent quantum efficiency is 4.87% at 420 nm. The one-pot conversion of MB into hydrocarbons was demonstrated by a series of experiments. The photocatalytic mechanisms of one-pot conversion of MB into hydrocarbons were proposed to explain the detailed photocatalytic process.