Unraveling the synergy of interface engineering α-MnO2/Bi2WO6 heterostructures and defective active sites for superdurable photocatalysis: Mechanistic insights into charge separation/transfer

The construction of visible-light-driven hybrid heterostructure photocatalysts is of great significance for environmental remediation, although the utilization of strong visible-light response photocatalysts with high efficiency and stability remains a major challenge. Defect engineering is an excellent way to introduce metal cation vacancies in materials, thereby ensuing in highly enhanced catalytic performance. Inspired by this, we effectively constructed a built-in interface alpha-MnO2/Bi2WO6 heterostructure with abundant intimate interfaces and defective Mn3+/Mn4+ active sites for photocatalytic tetracycline hydrochloride (TC-HCl), hexavalent chromium Cr6+ reduction, and Escherichia coli (E. coli) inactivation. The experimental results, such as the active species test and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, indicated that the defective sites Mn3+/Mn4+, surface oxygen vacancies, and Bi(3+x)+ boosted the visible light absorption, and highly enhanced the photoinduced charge separation/transfer. Furthermore, experimental and DFT calculations reveal the high charge density at the built-in interface heterostructure and the Z-scheme charge transfer mechanism during the photocatalytic process. The results further reveal that O-2(-) and O-1(2) are the main reactive active species contributing to the photocatalytic reaction. The exceptional TC-HCl decomposition activity of the alpha-MnO2/Bi2WO6 heterostructure (97.56%, 2.31, and 2.04 times higher than bulk), enhanced reaction kinetics (K-app = 0.041 min(-1), 6.4, and 5.2 times higher than bulk), removal rate of 80.3%, Cr6+ reduction to Cr3+ (98.56%, K-app = 0.0599 min(-1)), and almost 100% bacterial inactivation compared to bulk alpha-MnO2 (42.22%) and Bi2WO6 (47.76%), were mainly due to the enhanced charge separation/transfer at the built-in interface and high charge density. This study opens new horizons for constructing Z-scheme MnO-based interface heterostructures with abundant defect sites for exceptional photocatalytic applications.