High-performance photocatalysts should have highly crystallized nano crystals?(NCs) with small sizes, high separation effi ciency of photogenerated electron–hole pairs, fast transport and consumption of photon-excited electrons from
the surface of catalyst, high adsorption of organic pollutant, and suitable band?gap for maximally utilizing sunlight energy. However, the design and synthesis?of these versatile structures still remain a big challenge. Here, we report a
novel strategy for the synthesis of ultrasmall and highly crystallized graphene–ZnFe 2 O 4 photocatalyst through interface engineering by using interconnected?graphene network as barrier for spatially confi ned growth of ZnFe 2 O 4 , as?transport channels for photon-excited electron from the surface of catalyst, as?well as the electron reservoir for suppressing the recombination of photogenerated?electron–hole pairs. As a result, about 20 nm ZnFe 2 O 4 NCs with highly?crystallized (311) plane confi ned in the graphene network exhibit an excellent?visible-light-driven photocatalytic activity with an ultrafast degradation rate of?1.924 × 10 ?7 mol g ?1 s ?1 for methylene blue, much higher than those of previously?reported photocatalysts such as spinel-based photocatalysts (20 times),TiO 2 -based photocatalysts (4 times), and other photocatalysts (4 times). Our?strategy can be further extended to fabricate other catalysts and electrode?materials for supercapacitors and Li-ion batteries.
Deren Yang,Jing Feng,Lili Jiang,Xiaoliang Wu,Lizhi Sheng,Yuting Jiang,Tong Wei and Zhuangjun Fan.
Advanced Functional Materials,25,7080-7087(2015)