Photodegrading rhodamine B dye with cobalt ferrite-graphitic carbon nitride (CoFe2O4/g-C3N4) composite

Abstract

The present research utilizes a sol-gel approach to create a CoFe₂O₄/g-C₃N₄ nanocomposite (NC) and explored several analytical methods to evaluate physical, chemical and optical based characteristics via XRD, FTIR, UV-vis, SEM/EDS and XPS for the prepared pure CoFe₂O₄, g-C₃N₄, and CoFe₂O₄/g-C₃N₄ NC. The XRD results show that the prepared g-C₃N₄, CoFe₂O₄, exhibits hexagonal and cubic phases respectively, whereas the g-C₃N₄/CoFe₂O₄ NC exhibit mixing of two phases. The energy band gaps for pure g-C₃N₄, CoFe₂O₄ and g-C₃N₄/CoFe₂O₄ NC values are viz., 2.75, 1.3, and 2.4 eV. As photocatalysts, synthesized materials were utilized for the decomposition of Rhodamine-B (RhB) dye. Finally, the CoFe₂O₄/g-C₃N₄ NC showed good performance of photocatalysis for RhB dye disintegration under the stimulus of visible light. According to the induced visible light, the rate at which the photocatalytic degradation occurs for the CoFe₂O₄/g-C₃N₄ NC was found to be 57% in 120 min and this is greater when compared with pure catalysts like CoFe₂O₄ (28%) and g-C₃N₄ (10%). These outcomes suggest that the prepared NC have efficiently worked during the photocatalytic process compared with its pure materials.

Keywords: CoFe(2)O(4)/g-C(3)N(4); Dye degradation; Photocatalysis; Rhodamine-B; Visible light irradiation.