Pt-GdCrO3-Bi2MoO6 ternary heterojunction with high photocatalytic activities for CO2 reduction and water purification

In this work, Z-scheme Pt-GdCrO3-Bi2MoO6 ternary heterojunction (Pt-GCO-BMO) are fabricated and applied for realizing effective photoreduction of CO2 to solar fuels. The constructed photocatalyst displayed significantly enhanced response to visible light, boosted carrier separation efficiency, improved CO2 adsorption level, and increased strong reduction capacities. Therefore, the production of CO (15.35 μmol/g/h) and CH4 (8.49 μmol/g/h), as dominating products, can be increased by 4.7 and 9.1 times as compared to that of pure BMO, respectively. In addition, the CO and CH4 generation rates of the Pt-GCO-BMO photocatalyst shown little change after five reuse cycles. The Pt-GCO-BMO photocatalyst also displayed a better photocatalytic activity for bisphenol A removal than either GCO or BMO only, achieving 78.43% degradation efficiency under the visible light irradiation. Overall, a promising strategy to design and prepare a high efficient Z-scheme photocatalyst with strong oxidative/reductive bands for solar-driven CO2 photoreduction and wastewater purification has been demonstrated through the Pt-GCO-BMO heterojunction photocatalyst.