Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate photocatalytic lignin degradation utilizing magnetically removable Fe3O4@g-C3N4 under visible light irradiation. Optimum conditions for lignin degradation by Fe3O4@g-C3N4 were determined. The results showed that Fe3O4@g-C3N4 can photocatalytically decompose lignin up to 90% at pH 7 after 3 h of visible light irradiation, and optimum catalyst loading in this study was 2.5 g/L. The synthesized photocatalyst exhibited stable photocatalytic activity after seven cycles. Anaerobic digestion of the photocatalytic degraded lignin for methane and biogas production was assessed with a novel approach for anaerobic digestion. In the proposed method, anaerobic digestion was conducted in total organic carbon vials with a 4 mL sample, without the need for gas collection. The key finding of this study was that the treated lignin sample outperformed the untreated lignin in terms of increased methane production by 30%.

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