Investigating the Effect of Various Precursors in the Synthesis and Improvement of the Photocatalytic Performance of Graphite Carbon Nitride in the Degradation of Rhodamine B Dye Under Visible Light

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Environmental Sciences Research Institute, Shahid Beheshti University, P.O. Code: 1983969411, Tehran, Iran

10.30509/jcst.2024.167291.1224

Abstract

Photocatalytic processes using solar energy are one of the new chemical purification methods in the purification of colored organic pollutants, attracting much attention. Graphite carbon nitride photocatalyst (g-C3N4) was synthesized using the thermal polymerization method and using (single or combined) melamine, thiourea, and ammonium chloride precursors. Synthesized photocatalysts based on g-C3N4 were analyzed to investigate their structure, morphology, and properties using XRD, FT-IR, SEM, EDX, BET, PL, and DRS analyses and to degrade the cationic dye Rhodamine B (RhB) used. The results of the experiments showed that the graphite carbon nitride synthesized with the combined precursor of melamine, thiourea, and ammonium chloride (MTA) with a dose of 0.2 g/l and a color concentration of 50 mg/l has the highest performance on the degradation of RhB color and after 2 hours, caused 100% decolorization of the dye solution. Also, the photocatalytic efficiency of MTA in the degradation of RhB dye was almost constant in five consecutive cycles. In addition, according to the results of the trapping experiments, the active species of superoxide radical (•O2-) was the dominant species for the degradation process of RhB. Hence, MTA can be considered an efficient catalyst due to its advantages, such as one-step synthesis, effective photocatalytic performance, and reusability.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

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