Nitrogen photofixation ability of g-C3N4 nanosheets/Bi2MoO6 heterojunction photocatalyst under visible-light illumination

Elham Vesali-Kermani; Aziz Habibi-Yangjeh; Hadi Diarmand-Khalilabad; Srabanti Ghosh

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2019.12.057

Nitrogen photofixation ability of g-C₃N₄ nanosheets/Bi₂MoO₆ heterojunction photocatalyst under visible-light illumination

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2020 Mar 15:563:81-91. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2019.12.057. Epub 2019 Dec 16.

Authors

Elham Vesali-Kermani¹, Aziz Habibi-Yangjeh², Hadi Diarmand-Khalilabad¹, Srabanti Ghosh³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, University of Mohaghegh Ardabili, P.O. Box 179, Ardabil, Iran.
² Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, University of Mohaghegh Ardabili, P.O. Box 179, Ardabil, Iran. Electronic address: ahabibi@uma.ac.ir.
³ Fuel Cell & Battery Division, CSIR-Central Glass and Ceramic Research Institute, 196, Raja S.C. Mullick Road, Kolkata 700032, India.

PMID: 31869587
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2019.12.057

Abstract

In this study, we combined bismuth molybdate with graphitic carbon nitride nanosheets with different percentages of 10%, 20%, 30%, and 40%, in which noticeable N₂ photoreduction under visible-light illumination was seen for the binary g-C₃N₄ nanosheets/Bi₂MoO₆ photocatalysts, denoted as NCN/BMO. The XPS, HRTEM, TEM, XRD, EDX, UV-vis DRS, N₂ adsorption-desorption, FT-IR, TGA, PL, photocurrent, and EIS instruments were utilized to characterize the fabricated photocatalysts. The results displayed the construction of type-II heterojunction between the NCN and BMO components for the easy charge transfer. Under mild conditions and using ethanol as a hole scavenger, the NCN/BMO (30%) nanocomposite showed the maximum capability for ammonia generation by 3271 µmol/L g, which is 1.9 and 9.2 times higher than the NCN and BMO components, respectively. The effects of solvent type, pH of solution, and electron scavenger on the rate of NH₄⁺ production were also studied and conversed. Finally, the stability of the NCN/BMO (30%) nanocomposite was evaluated for four cycles, in which the results were desirable.

Keywords: Bi(2)MoO(6); Heterojunction; N(2) photofixation; Visible-light photocatalyst; g-C(3)N(4) nanosheets.