Synthesis and Characterization of Fe/Graphitic Carbon Nitride Nanocomposites as an Effective Visible Light Active Photocatalyst for Degradation of Methylene Blue

Abstract: Being as a polymeric metal-free semiconductor, graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) has recently received a great deal of attention owing to its appealing properties such as high thermal and chemical stability, abundant availability of precursors, and low band gap of about 2.7eV. This semiconductor is simply prepared through one-pot thermal polymerization of different low-cost precursors such as urea, melamine, and dicyandiamide. However, wider application of g-C3N4 is seriously hindered due to high recombination rate of photogene rated electron–hole pairs, leading to low photocatalytic activity. In order to decrease recombination of the charge carriers, one effective strategy is combination of g-C3N4 with semiconductors having proper energy levels. [1] The present work demonstrates nanocomposites Fe/ graphitic carbon nitride as a visible light active photocatalyst for degradation of Methylene blue dye. The properties of Fe/gC3N4 were characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, FTIR and EDX. The results revealed the enhanced photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue under visible light rather than the pure graphitic carbon nitride and Fe due to the separation of electron-hole pairs.