Construction of oxygen-vacancies-rich S-scheme BaTiO3/red phosphorous heterojunction for enhanced photocatalytic activity

The S-scheme heterojunctions can effectively separate photogenerated electrons and holes, retain their high redox capacity, and provide great prospects for enhancing the photocatalytic activity of the composites in different fields. Herein, S-scheme heterojunction photocatalytic materials were rationally designed and prepared by a simple hydrothermal method between narrow-bandgap red phosphorus (HRP) and wide-bandgap BaTiO3 (BTO) photocatalysts. Owing to the effective charge separation and redox ability from the S-scheme mechanism and oxygen vacancies, BTO/HRP exhibited good photoelectrochemical and photocatalytic degradation ability. Systematic photoreaction tests demonstrated that BTO/HRP had high practicality in the removal of pollutants from wastewater; its photodegradation rate of Rhodamine B reached 3.029 × 10−1 min−1 in 12 min; and it could inactivate 1.8 × 109 CFU/mL of Escherichia. coli in 1 h, with an antibacterial rate of 99.8%. This paper provided a promising photocatalyst for pollutant removal and a new strategy for the fabrication of efficient RP-based photocatalytic materials.