Construction of SnO2/g-C3N4 an effective nanocomposite for photocatalytic degradation of amoxicillin and pharmaceutical effluent

• DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2022.112809
• Publication Date: 2022-01-29T23:20:37Z
• Authors: Michael raj Sherl...; Jothi Vinoth Kumar; Jamaan S. Ajarem; Ahmed A. Allam; Velu Manikandan; Rajaram Arulmozhi; Natarajan Abirami
• Keywords: Graphitic carbon nitride; Photodegradation; Tin oxide

The current study mainly focused on the fabrication of 2D graphitic carbon nitride-supported tin oxide nanoparticles (SnO2/g-C3N4) for the effective degradation of Amoxicillin (AMX). Tin oxide (SnO2) NPs were prepared by green and easy modification technique, and then it is decorated over g-C3N4 nanosheets. The structural morphology and surface composition of the synthesized SnO2/g-C3N4 nanocomposite were fully analysed by UV-Vis, XRD, XPS, and HR-SEM with EDAX, FT-IR, and BET analysis. The (HR-TEM) microscopy, the size of SnO2 NPs which as a diameter is about 6.2 nm. The Raman analysis revealed that the SnO2/g-C3N4 composite had a moderate graphitic structure, with a measured ID/Ig value of 0.79. The degradation efficiency of antibiotic pollutant AMX and pharma effluent treatment was monitored by UV spectroscopy. The optical band gap of SnO2 (2.9 eV) and g-C3N4 (2.8 eV) photocatalyst was measured by Tauc plots. To investigate the mechanism through the photodegradation efficiency of the catalyst was analysed by using different Scavenger EDTA-2Na holes (h+) has a greater contribution towards the degradation process. Under visible irradiation, SnO2/g-C3N4 nanocomposite has exhibited an excellent degradation performance of 92.1% against AMX and 90.8% for pharmaceutical effluent in 80 min.