Degradation of toxic textile effluent rhodamine-B dyes using oxygen doped graphitic carbon nitride nanosheets

Abstract

A metal-free oxygen-doped graphitic carbon nitride (O-gCN) is prepared by thermal decomposition techniques using urea and oxalic acid (OA). The O-gCN physio-chemical properties are obtained by using different analytical analyses. The O-gCN is utilized as a photocatalyst and applied to degrade rhodamine-B toxic environmental dye. The higher photocatalytic ability of O-gCN is ascribed to the nanostructure with a porous nature. In addition, the porous nature of prepared O-gCN initiated more reactive sites for the degradation of target pollutants. The dopant oxygen atoms in the gCN tri-s-triazine units have extended enormous light absorption capability in the visible range. Radical scavenging experiments exhibited that the reactive radicals played a key role in the photocatalytic degradation of rhodamine B (RhB). The treated waters' toxic and non-toxic nature is observed using mung bean seed germination. Hence, this present study portrayed a simple, eco-friendly, and cost-effective technique to prepare O-gCN nanosheets for environmental remediation applications.