Rational design of α-MnO2/HT-GCN nanocomposite for effective photocatalytic degradation of ciprofloxacin and pernicious activity.

Abstract

The present study is mainly concerned with the development of cost-efficient composite material utilized to produce one-dimensional manganese oxide (α-MnO2) nanoparticles coated on two-dimensional graphitic carbon nitrides (HT-GCN) as nanocomposite (α-MnO2/HT-GCN) for highly efficient CIP degradation. The α-MnO2 nanoparticles (NPs) were prepared by a simple hydrothermal technique before being decorated on HT-GCN (H denotes protonation and T represents thermal-decomposition-graphitic carbon nitride). Tauc plots were used to calculate the band gap values of the photocatalysts α-MnO2 (1.74eV), GCN (2.84eV), HT-GCN (2.63eV), and α-MnO2/HT-GCN (2.31eV). The mechanism was investigated by various scavengers, particularly isopropanol (•OH) makes a significant role in the photodegradation process. The degradation percentage for ciprofloxacin was 89.2% and the rate of reaction R2 = 0.9913. This study demonstrates a unique method for developing a heterojunction-based nanocomposite of α-MnO2/HT-GCN, which exhibit better light absorption performance.