Construction of ZnO Hollow Spheres Coupled with g-C3N4 as Enhanced Photocatalysts under Simulated Solar Light

Abstract

Rapid photon-induced e−-h+ pairs recombination rate is a fatal factor restricting the photocatalytic performance of graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4). In this work, ZnO hollow spheres (ZnO HS) coupled with g-C3N4 photocatalysts were prepared by a simple mechanical agitation of the mixture of g-C3N4 and ZnO HS in ethanol solution. The as-prepared samples were systematically measured via were characterized by XRD, SEM, DRS, FT-IR and PL. As analysis from the PL test results, the g-C3N4/ZnO HS has much lower photo-generated e−-h+ pairs recombination rate than that of pure g-C3N4. Under the illumination of simulated solar light, the effect of ZnO HS concentration on the photocatalytic properties of as-prepared gC3N4/ZnO HS photocatalysts with different ZnO amount was discussed by the degradation of methyl orange (MO) in detail. The optimum photodegradation performance of g-C3N4/ZnO HS with 5% ZnO HS is almost 47.43% higher than that of pristine g-C3N4. Our research results present a simple and convenient synthetic protocol for processing g-C3N4-based photocatalysts for the degradation of environmental pollutants.