Development of highly efficient Ce(MoO4)2/g-C3N4 composite for the photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue and ciprofloxacin under visible light

Abstract

Semiconductor based photocatalysts are reflected to be an effective way to solve the global energy demand and environmental remediation issues. We have successfully fabricated using a hydrothermal method for a new binary Ce(MoO4)2/g-C3N4 (CeM/g-CN) composite. The synthesized CeM/g-CN composite has displayed improved photocatalytic degradation performance towards the antibiotic pollutant of ciprofloxacin (CIP) and methylene blue (MB) under visible-light. The structure, composition, morphology, and optical absorption properties of synthesized materials were characterized by different techniques like PXRD, FE-SEM-EDX, TEM, XPS, FT-IR, PL, TRFL, BET, and UV–vis DRS, respectively. Our results conclude that, among the series of synthesized compounds, CeM/g-CN-20 composite has shown significant photocatalytic degradation efficiency for two different organic pollutants, those are CIP and MB. The degradation percentage and rate constant of CIP and MB for optimized CeM/g-CN-20 composite were 78.11 % and 11 × 10−3 min−1, 87.56 %, and 15.6 × 10−3 min−1 in 140 min under visible-light irradiation. The degradation percentage and rate constant were very high compared to pristine CeM, g-CN, and other composites. The enhancement in the degradation ability of CeM/g-CN-20 may be ascribed to photogenerated charge carriers separation and transferability were more, and recycle test confirms it has good stability. Moreover, a suitable photocatalytic degradation mechanism is also proposed.