Fabrication of compressible and recyclable macroscopic g-C3N4/GO aerogel hybrids for visible-light harvesting: A promising strategy for water remediation

Herein, a g-C3N4/GO aerogel hybrid with macroscopic 3D architecture is fabricated and applied in visible light-induced water mediation. The composite photocatalyst with compressibility and recyclability is extraordinarily suitable for practical application. The morphologies and properties are carefully characterized, suggesting g-C3N4 is well decorated on the surface of GO by pi-pi stacking and the GO sheets are weltinterlaced. A moderate amount of g-C3N4 in the hybrid is beneficial to photocatalytic activity for dyes and bromates. When the mass ratio of g-C3N4 and GO is 3:5, the % degradation of MO and MB (20 mg L-1) can reach similar to 90% in 40 min visible-light illumination, and%conversion of bromate (250 mu z L-1) can be obtained almost 80% in 60 min illumination. Underlying premise of maintaining intact macro appearance, the photocatalytic performance of the hybrid scarcely any lowers after 5 successive runs on degradation of MO, and the mass loss is below 4%. The composite mainly interacts with the contaminants by pi-pi adsorption, implying it can be an important broad-spectrum photocatalyst since most of the contaminants in the environments contain pi-bond structure. Through scavenger experiments and ESR determination, peroxide radical anions are proven as the predominant species during the photodegradation processes. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.