Coupling of MoSe2 and graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) by facile hydrothermal route for enhanced visible-light photocatalytic properties

Abstract

Environmental issues have become an inevitable problem all over the world. By employing green renewable and abundant solar energy, semiconductor based photocatalysis is considered as an efficient process for the remediation of environmental pollution. g-C3N4 a stable π-conjugated system is a low cost and metal free photocatalysts that have the potential to remove various pollutants under visible light irradiation. In the present work, bulk g-C3N4 was synthesized by thermal polymerization of nitrogen rich precursor, melamine. To improve the photocatalytic performance, exfoliated g-C3N4 have been prepared by two different methods: a two steps liquid-phase ultrasonic-assisted exfoliation method and thermal exfoliation method. Protonation of bulk g-C3N4 followed by sonication was employed to obtain exfoliated g-C3N4. Second method is simple thermal treatment of bulk g-C3N4 to form exfoliated graphitic nitride. The exfoliated graphitic nitride was then coupled with MoSe2 and a comparative study has been done with pristine MoSe2. The prepared composite, MoSe2/g-C3N4, demonstrates a visible light degradation of 98% for Rhodamine-B (RhB) in 50 min.