Boosting visible-light photocatalytic performance of g-C3N4/Fe3O4 anchored with CoMoO4 nanoparticles: Novel magnetically recoverable photocatalysts

Abstract

In the present work, visible-light-driven g-C3N4/Fe3O4/CoMoO4 photocatalysts (denoted as CN/FeO/CoMoO4) were fabricated by a refluxing-calcination route. The phase, morphology, composition, texture, structure, electronic, textural, thermal, and magnetic properties of the fabricated nanocomposites were studied by XRD, EDX, SEM, TEM, HRTEM, XPS, FT-IR, UV–vis DRS, PL, BET, TGA, and VSM instruments. When the weight percentage of CoMoO4 was 30%, photocatalytic performance of the ternary nanocomposite in degradations of RhB, MB, MO, fuchsine, and photoreduction of Cr(VI) was almost 10, 15, 31.8, 37, and 23.2 times higher than that achieved by the pure g-C3N4. This substantially improved photocatalytic performance was attributed to more production of charge carriers, efficient separation of them from recombination, and enhanced textural properties. Moreover, the photocatalyst was magnetically recovered with negligible loss in the activity, which has key role in design of the sustainable photocatalysts. Therefore, the CN/FeO/CoMoO4 photocatalysts could have potential applications in the environmental remediations.