Sodium and Sulfur Co‐Doped Graphitic Carbon Nitride: A Novel and Effective Visible Light Driven Photocatalyst with Tunable Bandgap for Degradation of Eosin Yellow
Bishal Das, Meghali Devi, Monjur Hassan Barbhuiya, Siddhartha Sankar Dhar
Abstract
Abstract A novel Na and S co‐doped g‐C 3 N 4 (Na−S−GCN) hybrid was synthesized by facile and inexpensive calcination of melamine and Na 2 S. The synthesized catalysts were systematically characterized with XRD, FT‐IR, SEM, HR‐TEM, XPS, PL and UV‐DRS. The successful doping of Na and S in the g‐C 3 N 4 layers was confirmed with XPS and FT‐IR analysis. UV‐DRS spectra and band gap calculation revealed higher visible light absorption and lower band gap of Na−S−GCN (2.64 eV) than that of GCN (2.83 eV). The photochemical efficiency of Na−S−GCN was examined using eosin yellow (EY) which afforded 90 % degradation in 140 minutes under visible light. A 7.4 times higher degradation of EY was found with Na−S−GCN than that with bulk GCN. The higher catalytic activity was attributed to enhanced visible light absorption and effective lowering of recombination of reactive photogenerated species. The involvement of . OH and O 2.− in the degradation process was confirmed with radical trapping experiments.