Z-scheme Au decorated carbon nitride/cobalt tetroxide plasmonic heterojunction photocatalyst for catalytic reduction of hexavalent chromium and oxidation of Bisphenol A

Au/g-C3N4/Co3O4 plasmonic heterojunction photocatalyst was successfully prepared by in-situ forming Co3O4 nanocubes on the Au/g-C3N4 nanosheets. The catalytic activities of the photocatalysts were systematically studied through the catalytic reduction of hexavalent chromium (Cr6+) and oxidation of Bisphenol A (BPA) under visible light irradiation, while according to the degradation products determined by GC-MS, the catalytic degradation pathway of BPA was proposed. 4Au/g-C3N4/Co3O4 sample exhibits the most efficient catalytic activities, and the photocatalytic reduction and photocatalytic oxidation efficiencies can obtain 85.6% and 90.3%, respectively. The main reasons of the enhancing catalytic performance are the high absorption capability to visible light generated by localized surface plasmon resonance and the effective interface charge separation. Finally, we speculated that the Au/g-C3N4/Co3O4 sample followed Z-scheme charge transfer mechanism in this study, which is verified by the analysis of experiment and theoretical calculation results.