Dataset Information

G-C3N4-Mediated Synthesis of Cu2O To Obtain Porous Composites with Improved Visible Light Photocatalytic Degradation of Organic Dyes.

ABSTRACT: A highly porous architecture of graphitic carbon nitride g-C3N4/Cu2O nanocomposite in the form of cubes with a side length of ≈ 1 μm, large pores of 1.5 nm, and a high surface area of 9.12 m2/g was realized by an optimized in situ synthesis protocol. The synthesis protocol involves dispersing a suitable "Cu" precursor into a highly exfoliated g-C3N4 suspension and initiating the reaction for the formation of Cu2O. Systematic optimization of the conditions and compositions resulted in a highly crystalline g-C3N4/Cu2O composite. In the absence of g-C3N4, the Cu2O particles assemble into cubes with a size of around 300 nm and are devoid of pores. Detailed structural and morphological evaluations by powder X-ray diffraction and field emission scanning electron microscopy revealed the presence of highly exfoliated g-C3N4, which is responsible for the formation of the porous architecture in the cube like assembly of the composite. The micrographs clearly reveal the porous structure of the composite that retains the cubic shape of Cu2O, and the energy-dispersive spectroscopy supports the presence of g-C3N4 within the cubic morphology. Among the different g-C3N4/Cu2O compositions, CN/Cu-5 with 10% of g-C3N4, which is also the optimum composition resulting in a porous cubic morphology, shows the best visible light photocatalytic performance. This has been supported by the ultraviolet diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV-DRS) studies of the composite which shows a band gap of around 2.05 eV. The improved photocatalytic performance of the composite could be attributed to the highly porous morphology along with the suitable optical band gap in the visible region of the solar spectrum. The optimized composite, CN/Cu-5, demonstrates a visible light degradation of 81% for Methylene Blue (MB) and 85.3% for Rhodamine-B (RhB) in 120 min. The decrease in the catalyst performance even after three repeated cycles is less than 5% for both MB and RhB dyes. The rate constant for MB and RhB degradation is six and eight times higher with CN/Cu-5 when compared with the pure Cu2O catalyst. To validate our claim that the dye degradation is not merely decolorization, liquid chromatography-mass spectroscopy studies were carried out, and the end products of the degraded dyes were identified.

SUBMITTER: Surikanti GR

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6811861 | biostudies-other | 2019 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

ACCESS DATA

Publications

g-C3N4-Mediated Synthesis of Cu2O To Obtain Porous Composites with Improved Visible Light Photocatalytic Degradation of Organic Dyes.

Surikanti Ganesh Reddy GR Bajaj Pooja P Sunkara Manorama V MV

ACS omega 20191007 17

A highly porous architecture of graphitic carbon nitride g-C3N4/Cu2O nanocomposite in the form of cubes with a side length of ≈ 1 μm, large pores of 1.5 nm, and a high surface area of 9.12 m2/g was realized by an optimized in situ synthesis protocol. The synthesis protocol involves dispersing a suitable "Cu" precursor into a highly exfoliated g-C3N4 suspension and initiating the reaction for the formation of Cu2O. Syste ...[more]

PMID: 31656904

Similar Datasets

Project description:Creation of an innovative composite photocatalyst, to advance its performance, has attracted researchers to the field of photocatalysis. In this article, a new photocatalyst based on polyaniline/reduced graphene oxide (PANI/RGO) composites has been prepared via the in situ oxidative polymerization method employing RGO as a template. For thermoelectric applications, though a higher percentage (50 wt %) of RGO has been used, for photocatalytic activity, lesser percentages (2, 5, and 8 wt %) of RGO in the composite have given a significant outcome. Furthermore, photoluminescence (PL) spectra, time-resolved fluorescence spectra, and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller surface area analyses confirmed the improved photocatalytic mechanism. PANI/RGO composites under visible light irradiation exhibit amazingly improved activity toward the degradation of cationic and anionic dyes in comparison with pristine PANI or RGO. Here, a PANI/RGO composite, with 5 wt % RGO(PG2), has emerged as the best combination with the degradation percentages of 99.68, 99.35, and 98.73 for malachite green, rhodamine B, and congo red within 15, 30, and 40 min, respectively. Experimental findings show that the introduction of RGO can relieve the agglomeration of PANI nanoparticles and enhance the light absorption of the materials due to an increased surface area. Moreover, the PG2 composite also showed excellent photocatalytic activity to reduce noxious Cr(VI). The effective removal of Cr(VI) up to 94.7% at pH 2 was observed within only 15 min. With the help of the active species trapping experiment, a plausible mechanism for the photocatalytic degradation has been proposed. The heightened activity of the as-synthesized composite compared to that of neat PANI or RGO was generally because of high concentrations of •OH radicals and partly of •O2 - and holes (h+) as concluded from the nitroblue tetrazolium probe test and photoluminescence experiment. It is hoped that the exceptional photocatalytic performance of our work makes the conducting polymer-based composite an effective alternative in wastewater treatment for industrial applications.

Dataset Information

G-C3N4-Mediated Synthesis of Cu2O To Obtain Porous Composites with Improved Visible Light Photocatalytic Degradation of Organic Dyes.

Publications

g-C<sub>3</sub>N<sub>4</sub>-Mediated Synthesis of Cu<sub>2</sub>O To Obtain Porous Composites with Improved Visible Light Photocatalytic Degradation of Organic Dyes.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets