Coupling of photodegradation of RhB with photoreduction of CO2 over rGO/SrTi0.95Fe0.05O3−δ catalyst: A strategy for one-pot conversion of organic pollutants to methanol and ethanol

•A novel strategy is developed to achieve one-pot conversion of rhodamine B (RhB) to hydrocarbons.•A novel catalyst was prepared to couple photodegradation of RhB and reduction of CO2.•A mechanism was proposed to confirm the one-pot conversion of RhB to hydrocarbons.

For the first time, a novel strategy is developed to couple photocatalytic oxidation with photocatalytic reduction to achieve one-pot conversion of rhodamine (RhB) to methanol and ethanol by using rGO/SrTi0.95Fe0.05O3−δ photocatalyst. In the approach, RhB was photocatalytically degraded to CO2 and water, and then the as-obtained CO2 was converted into CH3OH and C2H5OH by means of photocatalytic reduction under simulated sunlight irradiation. Photocatalytic experimental results show the 1%rGO/SrTi0.95Fe0.05O3−δ has the best photocatalytic activity among the as-prepared catalysts and the corresponding product rate of CH3OH and C2H5OH is 10.76 and 6.14 μmol g−1 h−1, respectively, with a 1.53% apparent quantum efficiency. Furthermore, a photocatalytic mechanism was proposed to explain the detailed process of one-pot conversion of RhB into hydrocarbons. The present work gives a good example to combine the photodegradation of RhB with photoreduction of CO2 and proposes a new method to simultaneously tackle the problems of environmental pollution and energy crisis.

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