Visible-light-induced photocatalyst based on C-doped LaCoO3 synthesized by novel microorganism chelate method

The C-doped LaCoO3 was prepared by microorganism chelate method using Bacillus licheniformis R08 biomass as a chelating agent. XRD, DRS, FT-IR and XPS results demonstrated that the carbon was doped into lattice oxygen of LaCoO3, resulting in the optical absorption edge of C-doped LaCoO3 shifted to the low-energy region. The catalytic activities of the obtained samples were investigated by the photoreduction of carbon dioxide. The photocatalysis tests showed that C-doped LaCoO3 had more obvious advantage in harvesting the visible-light than pure LaCoO3, with the yield of formic acid reaching 95 μmol/h.g. Narrowing of the band-gap and the existence of Co–C binding, to which the improvement in photocatalytic activity are attributed.