Fabrication of novel flower-like Co3O4/g-C3N4 heterojunction for tetracycline degradation under visible light irradiation

In this paper, the flower-like Co3O4/g-C3N4 heterojunction was successfully synthesized via a facile hydrothermal method, and characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, UV-Vis DRS, PL and BET technologies. In Co3O4/g-C3N4 heterojunction, the g-C3N4 presents a graphene-like nanosheet structure, and lts surfaces were deposited with flower-like Co3O4. DRS evidences that the light absorption of the Co3O4/g-C3N4 heterojunction shifted to red. PL shows that the effective separation of charge carriers was significantly enhanced, which is due to the construction of P-N heterojunction. Moreover, using TC as a simulated pollutant, the asprepared Co3O4/g-C3N4-3% shows a excellent photocatalytic performance that the degradation rate of TC could reach to 85.32% after 120 min of visible light irradiation. This paper provides a new exemplification of constructing heterojunction microstructures for high-efficiency photocatalytic removing tetracycline pollutants.

Automated summary

The flower-like Co3O4/g-C3N4 heterojunction was successfully synthesized using a facile hydrothermal method, showing a graphene-like nanosheet structure for g-C3N4 and a redshift in light absorption. Effective charge carrier separation was enhanced due to the construction of P-N heterojunction. The Co3O4/g-C3N4-3% exhibited excellent photocatalytic performance in degrading TC pollutants under visible light irradiation.