Preparation Of In₂S₃Based Photocatalytic Paper With UV-visible Light Photocatalytic Activities

Energy shortage and environmental pollution are two challenging problems in human development. Developing photocatalysts for the degradation of organic pollutants under broad photo irradiation is an increasingly important research area. Among various photocatalysts that have been reported, TiO2nanomaterials have attracted special interest, owing to its low toxicity, chemical durability, low cost, and considerably high photocatalytic activity. However, because of its large intrinsic band gap (3.2eV in anatase phase and3.0eV in rutile phase), TiO2only possesses photocatalytic activity under UV light irradiation which accounts for less than5%of sunlight. Meanwhile, the separation of TiO2nanoparticles, such as P25, from a large volume of degraded effluent is not cost-efficient due to their small particle size. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a UV-visible light activated TiO2-based photocatalyst that can be easily recycled. In this article, One-dimensional titanium dioxide nanobelt was obtained with titanium dioxide nanoparticles as raw materials by simple hydrothermal treatment. In2S3@TiO2nanobelt composites were synthesized via depositing either In2S3nanosheets or In2S3nanoparticles on the acid corrosion surface of titanium dioxide nanobelts by wet-chemical precipitation method. The In2S3have more regular morphology and uniform size distribution with the analysis of the scanning electron microscope(SEM) and high resolution transmission electron microscopy(HRTEM). The as-prepared In2S3@TiO2photocatalyst shows a higher ultraviolet-visible catalytic activity. The experimental results show that the methyl orange of20mg/L was almost fully catalytically degraded through Uv light irradiation for30minutes and visible light irradiation for3hours. Then the adsorption experiments showed that decolorizing behavior of methyl orange was degradation process rather than adsorption process.Cellulose-based photocatalytic paper with TiO2, ZnO and In2S3nanoparticles loaded on some inorganic fibers such as carbon fibers, graphite fiber and alumina fibers were prepared with a papermaking technique. And we preliminarilly explore the preparation technology of In2S3-based photocatalytic paper. It is found that the efficient loading of photocatalyst particles on inorganic fibers depends greatly upon the surface coursing of the latter, which may provide more active sites for the growning of the former. The photocatalytic activity of the as-prepared photocatalytic paper was enormously influenced by the nanophotocatalysts loaded on inorganic fibers, inorganic fibers and the basis weight of the paper.