Mechanistic insight of the formation of visible-light responsive nanosheet graphitic carbon nitride embedded polyacrylonitrile nanofibres for wastewater treatment

Abstract

Effective capture and in situ photodegradation of methylene blue (MB) dye is a promising technique to purify wastewater containing MB. With recently elicited ripples of discovery on graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4), this study investigates the performance of g-C3N4 on photodegradation of MB. In this study, polyacrylonitrile (PAN) nanofibres embedded with g-C3N4 photocatalyst was successfully prepared using electrospinning technique which produced liquid-permeable self-supporting photocatalytic nanofibre mats that can be handled easily. Different configurations of g-C3N4 were synthesised, bulk g-C3N4 (bg-C3N4) and nanosheets g-C3N4 (nsg-C3N4) from urea using a green facile template-free method. Effective photocatalytic activity of the g-C3N4 nanofibres was confirmed by 97.3% degradation of MB under visible light irradiation. Photodegradation of MB in aqueous solution by g-C3N4 nanofibres predominantly attributed to the synergetic effects of MB adsorption by PAN nanofibres and photocatalytic degradation of MB by g-C3N4 photocatalyst. This present work not only presents the simplest ecofriendly and economical approach to fabricate g-C3N4 nanofibre photocatalyst, but also paves new opportunities for this advanced photocatalyst as great potential in environmental remediation for treatment of industrial MB wastewater.