Hierarchically Structured CuO/g-C3N4 Heterogeneous Semiconductor Photocatalyst with Improved Photocatalytic Activity and Stability

Novel rod-like structured CuO/g-C3N4 was successfully synthesized for photocatalytic degradation of environmental hazardous organic pollutants for the first time. The newly synthesized CuO/g-C3N4 photocatalyst possessed hierarchical rod morphology and grew well crystallinity with a crystallite size of about similar to 35 nm. The photocatalytic activity was evaluated towards the degradation of triphenylmethane, azo and cationic dyes under visible light and the results indicated that complete degradation was achieved in a short span of time in all the cases. This remarkably increased performance of CuO/g-C3N4 was owing to the prevention of electron-hole pair recombination, enhanced optical absorption in the visible region and the suitable band positions of CuO and g-C3N4. The mechanistic pathway was found out by using trapping experiments and the results concluded that the superoxide radical anion (O-2(center dot-)) was the main important species for the efficient degradation. This is the lowest time required for RhB degradation using C3N4 based photocatalysts. The interesting fact is that the CuO/g-C3N4 rods showed potential degradation efficacy against three different classes of dyes, which has also not yet been reported.