An Effective Strategy for Synthesizing High-Performance Photocatalyst by Recycling the Graphite Target Wastes

Abstract

The tide of new energy vehicles and modern semiconductor devices releases a myriad of graphite anode and graphite target wastes. Recycling graphite wastes for catalysis preparation turns out to be a win-win and efficient way to deal with rampant environmental pollution. In this work, a high-purity graphite target waste was efficiently recycled into 2D few-layer graphite as the raw materials for the subsequent synthesis of nanoscale photocatalysts. The as-developed photocatalyst demonstrates a gain of 11% in photocatalytic efficiency and superior photostability in sunlight-driven photodegradation of organic pollutants. Furthermore, the impact of temperature and pH value on the photocatalytic degradation efficiency was systematically investigated. The work affords an effective strategy for high-efficiency waste reclamation through full utilization of the graphite target wastes.

Keywords: Graphite target wastes, Recycling, nanophase photocatalysts, Organic pollutant degradation