Title
Facile synthesis of exfoliated graphitic carbon nitride for photocatalytic degradation of ciprofloxacin under solar irradiation
Author
Sambhu Prasad Pattnaik, Arjun Behera, Satyabadi Martha, Rashmi Acharya, Kulamani Parida
Year
2019
Journal
Journal of Materials Science
Abstract
Exfoliated g-C3N4 nanoparticles prepared by a green route (an aqueous bi-thermal method) were characterized by techniques such as XRD, UV-VDRS, FESEM, PL, TEM. Degradation of an aqueous solution of ciprofloxacin (CPN), when exposed to solar irradiation in the presence of g-C3N4 nanoparticles, was studied to evaluate the photocatalytic activities of semiconductor photocatalyst. The photocatalytic activities of g-C3N4 have enhanced after its exfoliation. The exfoliated g-C3N4 obtained with the aqueous bi-thermal method provided about three times the large surface area and about two and half times effective photocatalyst as bulk g-C3N4. The results of electrochemical tests like linear sweep voltammetry, MS graphs of exfoliated g-C3N4nanoparticles together with electrochemical impendence (EIS) corroborated the results of photocatalytic activities of g-C3N4 after exfoliation. The enhanced photocatalytic behavior of exfoliated g-C3N4 is the result of its efficient separation, low recombination of photogenerated charge carriers and high surface area. The effects of exfoliated g-C3N4 catalyst concentration, irradiation time and initial CPN concentration on the degradation of CPN were carefully studied. We found that 1 g/L nano-exfoliated g-C3N4 can degrade up to 78% a 20 ppm CPN solution exposed to solar light for 1 h. The studies also incorporated scavenger tests to possibly identify reactive species and mechanism for CPN degradation. This work provided a new method for scalable exfoliation of g-C3N4.
Instrument
V-750, FP-8300
Keywords
Diffuse reflectance, Optical properties, Band gap, Nanostructures, Materials, Fluorescence, Photoluminescence