Improved photodegradation of anionic dyes using a complex graphitic carbon nitride and iron-based metal-organic framework material

Huan V Doan, Hoa Thi Nguyen, V. P. Ting, Shaoliang Guan, Jean-Charles Eloi, Simon R Hall, Xuan Nui Pham*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (Academic Journal)peer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Introducing heterostructure to graphitic carbon nitrides (g-C3N4) can improve the activity of visible-light-driven catalysts for efficient treatment of multiple toxic pollutants in water. Here we report for the first time that a complex material can be constructed from oxygen-doped g-C3N4 and MIL-53(Fe) metal-organic framework using a facile hydrothermal synthesis and recycled polyethylene terephthalate from plastic waste. The novel multi-walled nanotube structure with unique interfacial charge transfer at the heterojunction in O-g-C3N4/MIL-53(Fe) composite showed an obvious enhancement in separation efficiency of the photochemical electron-hole pairs, resulting in narrow bandgap energy (2.30 eV compared to 2.55 eV in O-g-C3N4), high photocurrent intensity (0.17 mA cm-2 compared to 0.12 mA cm-2 and 0.09 mA cm-2 in MIL-53(Fe) and O-g-C3N4, respectively), and excellent catalytic performance in the photodegradation of anionic azo dyes (95.1% RR-195 and 99.8% RY-145 degraded after 4 h, and only a minor change in the efficiency observed after four consecutive tests). These results demonstrate the development of new catalysts made from waste feedstocks, high stability and ease of fabrication, which can operate in natural light for environmental remediation.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)81-96
Number of pages16
JournalFaraday Discussions
Volume231
Early online date19 Apr 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was nancially supported by the Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam (B2021-MDA-03). HVD thanks the Royal Society of Chemistry for the Research Fund grant (R20-8172). HVD and VPT acknowledge support from the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/T517872/1 and EP/ R01650X/1, respectively). We also thank Prof Charl F. J. Faul (University of Bristol) for useful discussions on the photocatalytic testing. XPS experiments were performed at the Cardiff hub of the EPSRC National Facility for X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (‘HarwellXPS’), operated by Cardiff University and UCL under contract no. PR16195. TEM studies were carried out at the Chemical Imaging Facility, University of Bristol with equipment funded by the EPSRC under the grant “Atoms to Applications” (EP/K035746/1).

Publisher Copyright:
© The Royal Society of Chemistry.

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