Chapter 4 - Graphitic carbon nitride for photodegradation of dye Molecules

Abstract

Nanostructured graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) has grown to attract the intensive attention, for its novel applications as a photocatalyst. A conjugated polymer composed of two-dimensional (2D) nanosheets with a bandgap energy of 2.7 eV makes it an effective, visible-active photocatalyst for dye degradation. In this study, the basic concepts, principles, and mechanism of photocatalytic degradation of toxic dyes have been explored and a guideline for the choice of suitable dyes, based on the various g-C3N4 nanocatalysts, has been proposed. A narrow range of approaches have been developed for efficient photocatalytic degradation over a modified g-C3N4 surface with marketing choice. The successful use of g-C3N4 are proposed to be affected by three factors: electronic structural tuning, hybrid and nanocomposite production, and geometric structural manipulation. Herein, the recent developments and achievements for g-C3N4-based photocatalysts are compared. In addition, brief discussion is made regarding the progress in synthesizing g-C3N4 and their properties of catalytic efficiency, reproducibility, and recyclability as well as comparison of the catalytic performances of g-C3N4 with others. Finally, we provide an outlook on the future developments in the relevant works.