Effective oxygenated boron groups of boron-doped photoreduced graphene oxide for photocatalytic removal of volatile organic compounds
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
8-1-2022
Abstract
The adverse health effects from indoor air pollutants such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) has intrigued much attention. Photocatalytic oxidation (PCO) is a promising technique to degrade VOCs under ambient conditions. A metal-free photocatalyst, namely boron-doped photoreduced graphene oxide (BPRGO) was synthesized via a facile, scalable, and cost-effective UV irradiation method. The BPRGO photocatalyst managed to remove 80% of the VOCs (100 mg/m3 of methanol) within 6 h (0.283 h-1) under UV-A irradiation. Moreover, up to 91% of the VOCs were successfully mineralised into harmless CO2. The high photoactivity of BPRGO-1.0 was due to the high amount of oxygenated boron groups (OBGs) namely BC2O and BCO2 groups. The suitable amount of B dopants led to a higher hole carrier density and p-type conductivity. This had retarded the charge carrier recombination which improved the photocatalytic removal of VOCs. This work provides new insights of metalfree BPRGO photocatalyst for VOCs removal.
Keywords
Photocatalysis, B doping, Graphene oxide, Air remediation, Photoreduction
Divisions
nanocat
Funders
Ministry of Education (Grant No: FRGS/1/2021/STG05/UM/02/3),Universiti Malaya (Grant No: PPSI-2020-CLUSTER-IDIG03 & ST080-2021)
Publication Title
Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering
Volume
10
Issue
4
Publisher
Elsevier Science Ltd
Publisher Location
THE BOULEVARD, LANGFORD LANE, KIDLINGTON, OXFORD OX5 1GB, OXON, ENGLAND