Synthesis and photocatalytic performance of g-C<sub>3</sub>N<sub>4</sub>-CuO-ZnO for efficient degradation of crystal violet (CV) and methyl orange (MO) dyes under sunlight irradiation

Sidra Pervaiz; Muhammad Saeed; Mohamed A. Habila; Muhammad Asghar Jamal; Atta ul Haq; Iltaf Khan; Mohsin Javed; Sidra Pervaiz; Muhammad Saeed; Mohamed A. Habila; Muhammad Asghar Jamal; Atta ul Haq; Iltaf Khan; Mohsin Javed

doi:10.48130/prkm-0025-0011

Figures (8) Tables (1)

Figure 1.
XRD patterns of the g-C₃N₄-CuO-ZnO heterojunction.
Figure 2.
FTIR spectrum of the g-C₃N₄-CuO-ZnO heterojunction.
Figure 3.
SEM analysis of the g-C₃N₄-CuO-ZnO heterojunction.
Figure 4.
TGA and DTA curves for the g-C₃N₄-CuO-ZnO heterojunction.
Figure 5.
Comparison of photocatalytic activities of different substances.
Figure 6.
Kinetics analysis of photocatalytic degradation data of dyes according to kinetics model given in Eqn (8). The solid lines represented the experimental data while the broken lines represent the data calculated by kinetics Eqn (8) using Solver.
Figure 7.
Effect of initial pH on g-C₃N₄-CuO-ZnO catalyzed photodegradation of methyl orange and crystal violet dye.
Figure 8.
Proposed mechanism of the photocatalytic process.

Catalyst	Crystal violet dye		Methyl orange dye
Catalyst	k (min⁻¹)	R²	k (min⁻¹)	R²
g-C₃N₄	0.00637	0.988	0.00252	0.986
CuO	0.00418	0.986	0.00349	0.987
ZnO	0.00568	0.988	0.00290	0.988
g-C₃N₄-CuO-ZnO	0.01978	0.947	0.03994	0.928

Table 1.

Rate constants for degradation of crystal violet and methyl orange dyes over different substances. These rate constants were determined by analyzing the degradation data according to kinetics Eqn (8) using Solver.