Effective photocatalytic dechlorination of 2,4-dichlorophenol by a novel graphene encapsulated ZnO/Co3O4 core-shell hybrid under visible light.

In the present work, a graphene encapsulated ZnO/Co3O4 (GE/ZnO/Co3O4) core-shell hybrid is fabricated through a facile self-assembly approach, where the mutual electrostatic interaction force drives the ZnO/Co3O4 heteronanostructures to be fully wrapped with flexible ultrathin graphene shells. The as-prepared GE/ZnO/Co3O4 core-shell hybrid is characterized and exhibits excellent visible light photocatalytic ability toward dechlorination of 2,4-dichlorophenol (2,4-DCP) in the aqueous phase. It is worth noting that 2,4-DCP is almost completely mineralized into CO2 and H2O by the GE/ZnO/Co3O4 after 5 h of a photocatalytic reaction. This type of higher dechlorination and mineralization efficiency of 2,4-DCP is not generally observed, and is found to be higher than some previous studies. The dechlorination of 2,4-DCP has been achieved under different parametric conditions. The unique architecture of the GE/ZnO/Co3O4 core-shell hybrid also provides high stability and recyclability towards degradation of 2,4-DCP. The higher photocatalytic activity of the hybrid can be ascribed to the synergistic effect of ZnO, Co3O4 and graphene, and also by an increase in the contact surface between the metal oxide core and the graphene shell, which acts as a continuous path for rapid electron transport to offer a greater number of reactive species.