As displayed in Fig. S4 (Supporting information), the Mott-Schottky curves of UiO-66 show a positive slope, indicating the characteristics of n-type semiconductors. The flat band potential of UiO-66 is −0.70 V
vs. Ag/AgCl. The conduction band (CB) edge nearly overlaps the flat band potential [
28], thus, the CB of UiO-66 is calculated to be −0.50 V
vs. NHE. Moreover, the flat-band potential of PMo
12 is around −0.28 V
vs. NHE [
19]. The CB position of UiO-66 is lower than that of PMo
12, which means the electrons on the UiO-66 can be smoothly transferred to the PMo
12 due to
Ef equilibrium in the PMo
12/UiO-66 heterojunction. As described in
Fig. 2, the chemical environment of C, Zr, Mo and P have changed after photoreaction. Specifically, the peaks of C and Zr red shift by 0.08 eV and 0.04 eV, whereas the peaks of P and Mo blue shift by 0.18 eV and 0.09 eV. The above offsets of peaks indicate that the electrons migrate from UiO-66 to PMo
12, confirming the formation of heterojunction [
29]. Additionally, in the U 4f spectra of 15% PMo
12/UiO-66, four peaks at 396.19 eV, 395.39 eV and 392.96 eV, 382.16 eV are attributed to U(Ⅵ) and U(Ⅳ), indicating the coexistence of U(Ⅵ) and U(Ⅳ) species (
Fig. 2f) [
30]. In
Fig. 5a the new vibration band at 899 cm
−1 is the asymmetric stretching of uranyl species [
31], and have been confirmed as uranium peroxide, (UO
2)O
2·2H
2O by XRD (
Fig. 5b and Fig. S5 in Supporting information) [
32]. The quenching experiments were conducted to verify the primary active substances involved in the photoreduction process in order to gain deeper insight into reaction mechanism (Fig. S6 in Supporting information). The photocatalytic activity of 15% PMo
12/UiO-66 was inhibited after adding
p-BQ, revealing that ˙O
2− radicals are the main reduction radicals. In contrast, methanol acting as the hole scavenger can promote the separation of photoinduced carriers and improve the photocatalytic reduction, whereas the TBA shows no effect on the photoreaction, indicating ˙OH radicals are unnecessary during the photoreaction. In conclusion, the removal of U(Ⅵ) by PMo
12/UiO-66 can be divided as follow steps: (i) The dissociative U(Ⅵ) ions were adsorbed on the surface of PMo
12/UiO-66 before photoreaction ((Eq. 1)). (ii) Under irradiation, the electrons in the CB of UiO-66 drift rapidly along the direction of the internal electric field to the CB of PMo
12, and reduce U(Ⅵ) pre-enriched in PMo
12/UiO-66 (Eq. 2). (iii) The U(Ⅵ) species were reduced by photoelectrons and ˙O
2− radicals to form (UO
2)O
2·2H
2O (Eqs. 3–5) (
Fig. 6).