In recent years, the preservation of fruits and vegetables in cold storage has become an issue of increasing concern, ethylene plays a leading role among them. We found ZnO has the effect of degrading gaseous ethylene...In recent years, the preservation of fruits and vegetables in cold storage has become an issue of increasing concern, ethylene plays a leading role among them. We found ZnO has the effect of degrading gaseous ethylene, however its effect is not particularly satisfactory. Therefore, we used simple photo-deposition procedure and low-temperature calcination method to synthesize Au, Ag, and Au Ag alloy supported ZnO to improve the photocatalytic efficiency. Satisfactorily, after ZnO loaded with sole Au or Ag particles, the efficiency of ethylene degradation was 17.5 and 26.8 times than that of pure ZnO, showing a large increase in photocatalytic activity. However, the photocatalytic stability of Ag/ZnO was very poor, because Ag can be easily photooxidized to Ag2O. Surprisingly, when ZnO was successfully loaded with the Au Ag alloy, not only the photocatalytic activity was further improved to 94.8 times than that of pure ZnO, but also the photocatalytic stability was very good after 10 times of cycles. Characterization results explained that the Au-Ag alloy NPs modified ZnO showed great visible-light absorption because of the surface plasmon resonance(SPR) effect. Meanwhile, the higher photocurrent density showed the effective carrier separation ability in Au Ag/ZnO. Therefore, the cooperative action of plasmonic Au Ag bimetallic alloy NPs and efficient carrier separation capability result in the outstanding photoactivity of ethylene oxidation. At the same time, the formation of the alloy produced a new crystal structure different from Au and Ag, which overcomes the problem of poor stability of Ag/ZnO, and finally obtains Au Ag/ZnO photocatalyst with high activity and high stability. This work proposes a new concept of using metal alloys to remove ethylene in actual production.展开更多
文摘In recent years, the preservation of fruits and vegetables in cold storage has become an issue of increasing concern, ethylene plays a leading role among them. We found ZnO has the effect of degrading gaseous ethylene, however its effect is not particularly satisfactory. Therefore, we used simple photo-deposition procedure and low-temperature calcination method to synthesize Au, Ag, and Au Ag alloy supported ZnO to improve the photocatalytic efficiency. Satisfactorily, after ZnO loaded with sole Au or Ag particles, the efficiency of ethylene degradation was 17.5 and 26.8 times than that of pure ZnO, showing a large increase in photocatalytic activity. However, the photocatalytic stability of Ag/ZnO was very poor, because Ag can be easily photooxidized to Ag2O. Surprisingly, when ZnO was successfully loaded with the Au Ag alloy, not only the photocatalytic activity was further improved to 94.8 times than that of pure ZnO, but also the photocatalytic stability was very good after 10 times of cycles. Characterization results explained that the Au-Ag alloy NPs modified ZnO showed great visible-light absorption because of the surface plasmon resonance(SPR) effect. Meanwhile, the higher photocurrent density showed the effective carrier separation ability in Au Ag/ZnO. Therefore, the cooperative action of plasmonic Au Ag bimetallic alloy NPs and efficient carrier separation capability result in the outstanding photoactivity of ethylene oxidation. At the same time, the formation of the alloy produced a new crystal structure different from Au and Ag, which overcomes the problem of poor stability of Ag/ZnO, and finally obtains Au Ag/ZnO photocatalyst with high activity and high stability. This work proposes a new concept of using metal alloys to remove ethylene in actual production.
