Plasmonic effect-driven strategy for boosting photoelectrocatalytic degradation of rhodamine B using a SnS ₂ /Au self-supported photoelectrode

Photoelectrocatalytic degradation of pollutants is regarded as one of the green disposal schemes for water pollutants under the "dual carbon" strategy. In this paper, a gold-based tin disulfide self-supporting photoelectrode (SnS₂-Au/Ti foil) was successfully prepared by a two-step method and applied to the photoelectrocatalytic degradation of rhodamine B (RhB) pollutants. The phase structure of the self-supported photoelectrode was characterized by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometry, and fluorescence spectrophotometry. The test results for photoelectrocatalytic degradation performance demonstrated that the degradation performance of the pollutant RhB was significantly enhanced <i>via</i> the plasmonic effect of gold in synergy with the intrinsic photocatalytic characteristics of the tin sulfide semiconductor. The photoelectrocatalytic degradation efficiency of the self-supported photoelectrode reached 81.25% within 120 minutes. The composite electrode SnS₂-Au/Ti foil demonstrated an 38.18% and 8.45% increase in photoelectrocatalytic degradation of RhB efficiency over the single Au and SnS₂ electrodes, respectively. The plasmonic effect-driven strategy for boosting photoelectrocatalytic efficiency opens new perspectives for RhB degradation.