Construction of Bi₂MoO₆/g-C₃N₄, heterostructure for boosting photocatalytic degradation of rifampicin

Abstract

Composite Bi₂MoO₆/g-C₃N₄, in which Bi₂MoO₆, nanowires were dispersed on g-C₃N₄, was prepared by a simple co-precipitation method using Bi(NO₃)₃ 5H₂O and (NH₄)₆ Mo₇O₂₄ 4H₂O as precursors in the presence of g-C₃N₄, By using means of XRD, IR, SEM-EDS and UV-Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopies, the composition, morphology, and optical properties of the photocatalysts are investigated. It is revealed that the coupling with g-C₃N₄, slightly narrows the bandgap of Bi₂MoO₆which consequently enables the visible-light absorption of composite. Rifampicin was used as the target organic contaminant to evaluate the photocatalytic performance of Bi₂MoO₆/g-C₃N₄indicating about 80% rifampicin degradation after 180 min under visible light. Trapping experiment was carried out to identify the influence of radicals, which showed that both superoxide and hydroxyl radicals were found to be predominant in the photocatalytic reaction.