Modification of g-C 3 N 4 with arc-discharge synthesized carbon soot for enhanced visible-light photocatalysis

The practical use of g-C3N4 is limited by fast charge recombination rates, to overcome this various metal-based heterostructures were explored which has a risk of leaching into treated water, thus a metal-free photocatalyst needs to be explored. In this work, a highly efficient visible-light photocatalyst was developed using arc-discharge-synthesized sphere-like carbon soot nanoparticles (CS) and graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4 or CN) through a single-step pyrolysis process. CS loadings of 0.1% to 1% wt. were used in the nanocomposite. All the samples were characterized under XRD, SEM, TEM, FTIR, BET, XPS, and UV-DRS to study the optical, structural, morphological, and chemical bonding information. The photocatalytic activity was evaluated by Rhodamine B (RhB) photodegradation performance. The 0.1% loaded sample removed 97% of RhB in 90 min compared with 88% for pristine g-C3N4. The rate of reaction of the hybrid photocatalyst was 1.44 times greater than the pristine g-C3N4 material. This enhanced performance was attributed to the superior surface area of CS material, longer lifetime of photogenerated charges, suitable band edge levels and band gap leading to synergistic charge separation.