Graphitic Carbon Nitride (g-C3N4) Based Hybrid Nanomaterials for Energy and Environmental Applications

Abstract

The rapid increase in global population and industrial developments are major sources of calamities like shortage of energy and alarming increase in environmental pollution. To tackle these issues, visible-light-driven photocatalysis is considered as an emerging green tool that could efficiently degrade organic and inorganic pollutants into sustainable products and generate H2 energy by splitting water. Therefore, in this doctoral work, an effort has been made to explore the fabrication of different g-C3N4-based advanced photocatalytic materials that can be used for environmental pollution abatement and energy production. In the first objective g-C3N4/metal-free heterojunction nanocomposites i.e, nitrogen-doped reduced graphene oxide covalently coupled with graphitic carbon nitride/sulfur-doped graphitic carbon nitride heterojunction nanocatalysts (4NrGO/g–g PSCN) was fabricated successfully and was found to exhibit extraordinary performance for photoreduction and degradation of 4-Nitrophenol, In our second objective we have tried to develop g-C3N4/metal oxide heterojunction systems namely Ag nanoparticles functionalized Sg-C3N4/Bi2O3 2D nanohybrid (Sg-C3N4/Bi2O3/Ag), and g-C3N4/α-Fe2O3 heterojunction fabricated from g-C3N4/MIL-53(Fe), that were found to exhibit excellent visible-light photocatalytic performance towards Rhodamine B (RhB) dye and Tetracycline hydrochloride (TCH) degradation, and degradation of Bromoxynil, As(III) oxidation, and H2 evolution reactions respectively. Finally, in our last objective we have successfully developed g-C3N4/MOF system, i.e., graphitic carbon nitride (g-CN) nano-Island coupled Ni-MOF (Ni-ML) that exhibits enhanced photocatalytic activity towards N2 fixation and Cr (VI) reaction reactions. The mechanism of all the studied photocatalytic process were thoroughly investigated based on the outcomes of the various physiochemical characterizations, elemental trapping experimental results, and band structures of the developed catalyst. Furthermore, for the view of practical applications stability of all the developed catalysts were exhaustively investigated through multiple recycling experiments. In conclusion, we assume that this thesis work interprets a superlative opportunity to develop proficient g-C3N4-based photocatalyst for energy and environmental remediation.