Diamond and Related Materials | 2021
Construction of graphene aerogel photocatalyst CoS/g-C3N4/rGA with enhanced photocatalytic activity for the degradation of tetracycline hydrochloride
Abstract
Abstract A series of three-dimensional graphene aerogel photocatalysts CoS/g-C3N4/rGA are successfully constructed by simple hydrothermal method. Transition metal sulfide CoS was selected to modify graphite carbon nitride (g-C3N4) to improve its low charge separation efficiency, and the optimum loading ratio of CoS is 5%. The introduction of graphene provides a dispersion carrier for CoS/g-C3N4. The characterization results show that CoS nanoparticles are uniformly loaded onto g-C3N4 nanosheets and the obtained CoS/g-C3N4 is effectively combined with graphene nanosheets, resulting ternary composite CoS/g-C3N4/rGA with abundant pore structure. Optical and electrochemical properties prove that the CoS/g-C3N4/rGA has broad visible light absorption and effective separation rate of electrons and holes. In photocatalytic degradation experiments, the CoS/g-C3N4/rGA-50 exhibits the best performance for the photodegradation of tetracycline hydrochloride (TC), with a removal rate of 94.1% within 120\xa0min. The enhanced photocatalytic activity is attributed to the combination of CoS and g-C3N4 and the high electron mobility of graphene. The radical trapping experiments show that the main active species in the photocatalytic reaction are h+ and ·O2−. The three-dimensional aerogel material CoS/g-C3N4/rGA is easier to be separated from waste water and proves to be a promising visible-light photocatalyst for water pollution treatment.