Photoelectrocatalytic performance of conductive carbon black-modified Ti/F-PbO2 anode for degradation of dye wastewater (reactive brilliant blue KN-R).

The conductive carbon black (CCB)-modified Ti/F-PbO2 electrodes were prepared by electrodeposition and characterized systemically using SEM, EDS, XRD, and PL. It is found that the embedding CCB into the PbO2 coating inhibited the growth and aggregation of the PbO2 crystal grains, caused the formation of porous structure and the preferred growth of the (101) and (301) planes of the PbO2 crystal, and enhanced the oxygen evolution overpotential and carrier density of PbO2. The degradation experiment of anthraquinone dye (reactive brilliant blue KN-R) showed that the CCB-modified Ti/F-PbO2 electrodes had higher photoelectrocatalytic activity than that of the bare Ti/F-PbO2 electrode. In addition, the accelerated life measurement demonstrated that the lifetime of the CCB-embedded Ti/F-PbO2 electrode was much longer than that of the bare Ti/F-PbO2 electrode. The improvement of decolorization efficiency and stability of the CCB-modified Ti/F-PbO2 can be attributed to the large active areas, the presence of photoelectric synergism, the inhibition of oxygen precipitation, high current efficiency for formation of hydroxyl radicals, and the weakening of internal stress in PbO2 coatings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]