Ammonia-evaporation-induced construction of three-dimensional NiO/g-C3N4 composite with enhanced adsorption and visible light-driven photocatalytic performance

Abstract

Novel visible light-driven heterostructured NiO/g-C3N4 photocatalyst has been designed and successfully prepared via ammonia-evaporation-induced method. The synthetic strategy consists of grafting the surface of g-C3N4 with Ni(NH3)62+ complex followed by its hydrolysis at lower pH to form nano-wrinkled thin film of α-Ni(OH)2. The final NiO/g-C3N4 hybrid was obtained after calcination of the Ni(OH)2/g-C3N4 precursor at 350 °C. Scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, FTIR, N2 adsorption/desorption, UV-vis diffuse reflectance and photoluminescence spectroscopy were used to characterize the resulting material. Our results revealed the formation of meso-/macroporous three-dimensional hierarchical honeycomb-like structure with high BET surface area (141 m2 g−1). The photocatalytic performance of the composite under visible light (λ > 400 nm) irradiation was evaluated through degradation of Malachite Green (MG) from aqueous medium at room temperature (25 °C). For the sake of comparison, the physico-chemical and photocatalytic properties of the pristine g-C3N4 and nanostructured NiO were also examined. Results indicated that NiO/g-C3N4 is much more active than pristine g-C3N4 and NiO in the photodegradation of MG. The enhanced photocatalytic performance of the composite was mainly attributed to the combination of high adsorption capacity which facilitates the direct redox reactions of dye and the efficient inhibition of photo-generated electron-hole pair recombination. Superoxide radicals (•O2−) and photo-generated holes (h+) were found to be the main active species in the process.