Flower ball cathode assembled from Cu doped Co 3 S 4 /Ni 3 S 2 ultrathin nanosheets in a photocatalytic fuel cell for efficient photoelectrochemical rifampicin purification and simultaneous electricity generation based on a CuO QDs/TiO 2 /WO 3 photoanode

Herein, an efficient CuO QDs/TiO /WO photoanode and a Cu doped Co S /Ni S cathode were successfully synthesized. The optimized CuO QDs/TiO /WO photoanode achieved a photocurrent density of 1.93 mA cm at 1.23 RHE, which was 2.27 times that of a WO photoanode. The CuO QDs/TiO /WO -buried junction silicon (BJS) photoanode was coupled with the Cu doped Co S /Ni S cathode to construct a novel photocatalytic fuel cell (PFC) system. The as-established PFC system showed a high rifampicin (RFP) removal ratio of 93.4% after 90 min and maximum power output of 0.50 mW cm . Quenching tests and EPR spectra demonstrated that ˙OH, ˙O and O were the main reactive oxygen species in the system. This work provides a possibility to construct a more efficient PFC system for environmental protection and energy recovery in the future.