New insight into the effects of p-benzoquinone on photocatalytic reduction of Cr(VI) over Fe-doped g-C 3 N 4 .

It is of great significance to establish an effective method for removing Cr(VI) from wastewater. Herein, Fe-doped g-C ₃ N ₄ (namely Fe-g-C ₃ N ₄ -2) was synthesized and then employed as photocatalyst to conduct the test of Cr(VI) reduction. Notably, the embedding of Fe ion in g-C ₃ N ₄ can offer the Fe ²⁺ /Fe ³⁺ redox couples, so reducing the interfacial resistance of charge transfer and suppressing the recombination of photogenerated electrons and holes. The impurity energy levels will form in g-C ₃ N ₄ after the introduction of Fe ion, thereby boosting the light absorption capacity of catalyst. Thus, Fe-g-C ₃ N ₄ -2 showed good performance in photocatalytic Cr(VI) reduction, and the reduction efficiency of Cr(VI) can reach 39.9% within 40 min. Different with many previous studies, current work unexpectedly found that the addition of p-benzoquinone (BQ) can promote the Cr(VI) reduction, and the reduction efficiency of Cr(VI) over Fe-g-C ₃ N ₄ -2 was as high as 93.2% in the presence of BQ (1.5 mM). Further analyses showed that BQ can be reduced to hydroquinone (HQ) by photogenerated electrons, and UV light can also directly induce BQ to generate HQ by using H ₂ O as the hydrogen donor. The HQ with reducing ability can accelerate the Cr(VI) reduction. In short, current work shared some novel insights into photocatalytic Cr(VI) reduction in the presence of BQ. Future research should consider possible reactions between photogenerated electrons and BQ. For the UV-induced photocatalysis, the suitability of BQ as the scavenger of O ₂ ^•‒ must be given carefully consideration.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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