Exfoliated graphitic carbon nitride nanosheets for visible light photocatalytic degradation of Rhodamine B - Investigation on exfoliation method

Graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) nanosheets, as a high-efficiency photocatalyst, were successfully prepared by four different environment-friendly chemical and thermal methods for investigating the effect of the preparation method. The resulting exfoliated samples were characterized by techniques such as SEM, FT-IR, and XRD. It identified the GN1 and GN2 samples were better layered and their exfoliation methods were more effective than the other methods. Then to enhance performance and overcome the recovery problem, the best two prepared photocatalysts were doped with 10% Fe3O4. The magnetic photocatalysts were investigated and compared for rhodamine B (RhB) degradation as a common resistant dye. The dye-removing analysis before and after magnetic nanomaterial doping confirmed that the resist and recoverable magnetic photocatalyst could remove 93.5% of RhB in 60 min under light irradiation and 4 times recycling with minimum efficiency loss.