Title
g-C3N4/Ca2Fe2O5 heterostructures for enhanced photocatalytic degradation of organic effluents under sunlight
Author
Durga Sankar Vavilapalli, Raja Gopal Peri, R.K. Sharma, U.K.Goutam, B. Muthuraaman, M.S.Ramachandra, Shubra Singh
Year
2021
Journal
Nature Communications
Abstract
g-C3N4/Ca2Fe2O5 heterostructures were successfully prepared by incorporating g-C3N4 into Ca2Fe2O5 (CFO). As prepared g-C3N4/CFO heterostructures were initially utilized to photodegrade organic effluent Methylene blue (MB) for optimization of photodegradation performance. 50% g-C3N4 content in CFO composition showed an enhanced photodegradation efficiency (~ 96%) over g-C3N4 (48.15%) and CFO (81.9%) due to mitigation of recombination of photogenerated charge carriers by Type-II heterojunction. The optimized composition of heterostructure was further tested for degradation of Bisphenol-A (BPA) under direct sunlight, exhibiting enhanced photodegradation efficiency of about 63.1% over g-C3N4 (17%) and CFO (45.1%). The photoelectrochemical studies at various potentials with and without light illumination showed significant improvement in photocurrent response for g-C3N4/Ca2Fe2O5 heterostructures (~ 1.9 mA) over CFO (~ 67.4 μA). These studies revealed efficient solar energy harvesting ability of g-C3N4/Ca2Fe2O5 heterostructures to be utilized for organic effluent treatment.
Full Article
Instrument
V-730
Keywords
heterostructure, g-C3N4/Ca2Fe2O5, photoelectrochemical, photodegradation