Abstract
With the increasing water pollution, traditional treatments cannot sufficiently remove pollutants, thereby prompting the development of photocatalysts. In this study, ZnO-carbon cloth (CC) and spherical ZnO/CdSe-CC heterostructures with different CdSe loadings were synthesized using an ultrasonic-hydrothermal method on flexible CC. Z20CdSe-CC (ZnO with 20 mg CdSe loaded on CC) exhibited the best visible-light-responsive photocatalytic performance, with approximately 83.5% methylene blue reduced in 180 min. In addition, the degradation efficiency of Z20CdSe-CC was maintained at 70.9% after three cycles in relation to that of the ZnO powder. The synergistic effect of CdSe and CC not only effectively widened the light absorption range of ZnO/CdSe-CC but also further promoted the effective transfer of carriers and realized an efficient photocatalytic degradation process. Therefore, the ZnO/CdSe-CC photocatalytic material with CC as the flexible substrate exhibited high photocatalytic activity and stability in environmental remediation. This provides a design idea for the development of an efficient and flexible photocatalytic material in line with the concept of green chemistry.