Improvement in Visible Light Stimulated Photocatalysis by the Inducement of Magnesium Dopant inside Graphitic Carbon Nitride Frameworks

Abstract Environmental remediation is an essential step to eliminate contaminants and pollutants in air and aqueous bodies. Mg doped g-C3N4 (mgcn) nanostructures are found as promising nanomaterials for the degradation of organic dye and real sample (textile effluents) with excellent photocatalytic activity under visible light irradiation. This work demonstrates facile and novel synthesis of mgcn nanostructures by altering the mass ratio of magnesium nitrate. The optical properties, morphologies, chemical composition and oxidation state of all photocatalysts were studied by UV-DRS, FESEM, HR-TEM, and XPS spectroscopy. The kinetic studies have been done for gcn and mgcn nanostructures in which the 25mgcn nanostructure exhibited maximum photodegradation rate (0.045/min) which was three-fold greater than gcn (0.017/min) nanostructure. The improvement in photodegradation efficiency is attributed due to its narrow band gap, delay in charge recombination and porous nature of catalyst after the incorporation of a suitable amount of dopant in pristine g-C3N4.