Enhance ZnO Photocatalytic Performance via Radiation Modified g-C3N4
Yayang Wang, Xiaojie Yang, Jiahui Lou, Yaqiong Huang, Jian Peng, Yuesheng Li, Yi Liu
Abstract
Environmental pollution, especially water pollution, is becoming increasingly serious. Organic dyes are one type of the harmful pollutants that pollute groundwater and destroy ecosystems. In this work, a series of graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4)/ZnO photocatalysts were facilely synthesized through a grinding method using ZnO nanoparticles and g-C3N4 as the starting materials. According to the results, the photocatalytic performance of 10 wt.% CN-200/Z-500 (CN-200, which g-C3N4 was 200 kGy, referred to the irradiation metering. Z-500, which ZnO was 500 °C, referred to the calcination temperature) with the CN-200 exposed to electron beam radiation was better than those of either Z-500 or CN-200 alone. This material displayed a 98.9% degradation rate of MB (20 mg/L) in 120 min. The improvement of the photocatalytic performance of the 10 wt.% CN-200/Z-500 composite material was caused by the improvement of the separation efficiency of photoinduced electron–hole pairs, which was, in turn, due to the formation of heterojunctions between CN-200 and Z-500 interfaces. Thus, this study proposes the application of electron-beam irradiation technology for the modification of photocatalytic materials and the improvement of photocatalytic performance.