Scientific Reports (Oct 2021)

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
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-99020-6
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 1
pp. 1 – 11

Abstract

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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.