Effective degradation of organic pollutants and reaction mechanism with flower-like AgBiO3/g-C3N4 composite

Abstract

A novel binary AgBiO3/g-C3N4 composite has been successfully synthesized via in-situ growth of AgBiO3 on g-C3N4. The AgBiO3/g-C3N4 composite exhibited improved degradation performance towards organic pollutants of methyl orange (MO), tetracycline (TC), and phenol. The reaction proceeds at ambient temperature and pressure without any other energy sources or light. The characterization of ABC-3 and its corrosion product by XRD, FT-IR, SEM, and XPS indicated the transformation of ABC-3 into Bi2(CO3)O2 during the degradation process. Singlet oxygen (1O2) was demonstrated as the main reactive species during the degradation of MO, TC, and phenol. The improvement of degradation ability of ABC-3 might be attributed to the enhanced surface area and fast electron transfer rate. This work not only demonstrates AgBiO3/g-C3N4 composite as a promising composite for removing organic pollutants without the requirement of any auxiliary energy, but also meets the increasing requirement of practical applications.