Facile synthesis of novel ternary g-C3N4/ferrite/biochar hybrid photocatalyst for efficient degradation of methylene blue under visible-light irradiation

Abstract More and more attentions have currently been paid to photodegradation catalysts for environmental pollution removal because of the increasing environmental pollution. However, practical efficient catalysts still remains a great challenge. Herein, employing biomass bamboo fiber as carbon sources, solvothermal g-C3N4 and hydrothermal novel ferrite Ni0.1Co0.9Fe2O4 as photocatalyst monomers, a novel g-C3N4/Ni0.1Co0.9Fe2O4/biochar hybrid photocatalyst was fabricated by employing post calcination to in-situ form biochar and heterojunction co-hybridization. The as-synthesized ternary composite photocatalyst was analyzed with various techniques and the photocatalytic activity was evaluated against the degradation of methylene blue under visible-light irradiation. It was found that both the in-situ-formed low-graphitization biochar and the heterojunction co-hybridization between biochar, g-C3N4 with Ni0.1Co0.9Fe2O4 presented great improvement in photocatalytically degrading dyes. The targeted photocatalyst showed a degradation rate of 96.7 % towards methylene blue within 2 h in the existence of hydrogen peroxide, corresponding to a high degradation reaction rate constant k value of up to 2.833 × 10−2 min-1, which is 19 times that of pure g-C3N4 and 5 times that of pure Ni0.1Co0.9Fe2O4. Our targeted photocatalyst exhibits excellent photocatalytic efficiency and cycling stability, signifying a promising application in pollutant removal from environment, and our strategy provides a novel avenue for fabricating various high-performance carbon-modified hybrid photocatalysts.