Fibrous red phosphorus as a non-metallic photocatalyst for the effective reduction of Cr(VI) under direct sunlight

Hexavalent chromium is an important inorganic industrial effluent in the water that causes serious health problems to the mankind. Photocatalytic reduction of Cr(VI) is a green technology that converts the toxic Cr(VI) to non-toxic Cr(III). In the photocatalytic reduction of Cr(VI), transition metal oxide semiconductors are mainly used as photocatalysts. This infers, for the removal of a transition metal i.e. Cr(VI), another transition metal is added in the form of photocatalyst. Hence, we explore a non-metallic, elemental photocatalyst fibrous red phosphorus (FRP), a crystalline allotrope of red phosphorus as photocatalyst for Cr(VI) reduction. FRP exhibits excellent photocatalytic activity towards Cr(VI) reduction under direct sunlight and we observed complete reduction of Cr(VI) (25 mg/L) within 40 min at pH-2. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

The photocatalytic reduction of Cr(VI) is an effective technology to convert toxic hexavalent chromium into non-toxic substances. Research shows that fibrous red phosphorus (FRP) can serve as an efficient non-metallic photocatalyst for this process.