g-C3N4/Ca2Fe2O5 heterostructures for enhanced photocatalytic degradation of organic effluents under sunlight

Durga Sankar Vavilapalli; Raja Gopal Peri; R K Sharma; U K Goutam; B Muthuraaman; M S Ramachandra Rao; Shubra Singh

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-99020-6

g-C₃N₄/Ca₂Fe₂O₅ heterostructures for enhanced photocatalytic degradation of organic effluents under sunlight

Sci Rep. 2021 Oct 4;11(1):19639. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-99020-6.

Authors

Durga Sankar Vavilapalli¹, Raja Gopal Peri², R K Sharma³, U K Goutam³, B Muthuraaman², M S Ramachandra Rao⁴, Shubra Singh⁵

Affiliations

¹ Crystal Growth Centre, Anna University, Chennai, 600025, India.
² Department of Energy, University of Madras, Chennai, 600025, India.
³ Technical Physics Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, 400085, India.
⁴ Nano Functional Materials Technology Centre and Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, 600036, India.
⁵ Crystal Growth Centre, Anna University, Chennai, 600025, India. shubra6@gmail.com.

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.