Doping and heterojunction construction dual-regulation: Magnetically recoverable CoFe1.9Y0.1O4/g-C3N4 nanosheets with enhanced visible-light-driven photocatalytic activity

The development of efficient recoverable photocatalysts for organic pollution photodegradation has been one of the hot subjects in the past decades as a result of environmental concerns. Herein, a magnetically separable photocatalyst was successfully prepared by coupling Y-doped CoFe2O4 and graphitic carbon nitride through a simple calcination process. The obtained CoFe1.9Y0.1O4/g-C3N4 composite photocatalyst exhibited a saturation magnetization of 9.96 emu.g(-1) at 300 K, indicating superior magnetic characteristic. Remarkably, the optimal photocatalytic activity of the CoFe1.9Y0.1O4/g-C3N4 for methylene orange (MO) degradation under visible light irradiation was increased up to about 3.4, 2.3 and 2.0 times larger than that of pure CoFe2O4, g-C3N4 and CoFe1.9Y0.1O4, respectively. Further studies indicated the improved performance could be attributed to the Y doping as well as the type ll heterojunction formed between CoFe1.9Y0.1O4 and g-C3N4. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

The study successfully synthesized an efficient recoverable photocatalyst of CoFe1.9Y0.1O4/g-C3N4 composite, showing superior magnetic characteristics and high photocatalytic activity, with the degradation of organic pollutants significantly better than pure CoFe2O4 and g-C3N4 alone.