Pollutant Soot for Pollutant Dye Degradation: Soluble Graphene Nanosheets for Visible Light Induced Photodegradation of Methylene Blue

The findings presented here offer a new approach for the environmental application of pollutant soot somewhat like utilizing a pollutant material for degrading the other pollutant material. Herein, a simpler approach is described for the isolation of two-dimensional graphitic materials as water-soluble graphene nanosheets (wsGNS) from the globally identified dirty–dangerous black pollutant particulate matter as black carbon (BC) from the petrol soot. The as-isolated wsGNS are further employed for the photocatalytic degradation of toxic dye such as methylene blue (MB) under the influence of visible light irradiation. The photodegradation performance of wsGNS compared to insoluble graphene nanosheets (GNS) showed ∼11 times faster degradation rate within ∼90 min of visible light exposure (60 W tungsten bulb). The insights of the aqueous phase photodegradation of MB by the system of MB-wsGNS were studied by different chemical characterization techniques including nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, high-performance liquid chromatography, Raman, and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Furthermore, we have checked the regeneration efficiency of wsGNS, which was still at its higher value even after five cycles of recycling testing.