Construction of BiOCOOH/g-C3N4 composite photocatalyst and its enhanced visible light photocatalytic degradation of amido black 10B

Abstract The application of semiconductor photocatalysts in wastewater treatment has received increasingly attentions because of its potential utilization of solar energy. In this study, a novel visible-light-driven (VLD) BiOCOOH/g-C 3 N 4 composite photocatalyst was successful synthesized by a facile hydrothermal method. Afterwards, physicochemical properties of the resulting samples were investigated through X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface areas, UV–visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV–vis DRS), transient photocurrent density, Mott-Schottky (M−S) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) measurement. Furthermore, the visible light photocatalytic (PC) performance was evaluated through the degradation of amido black 10B dye. All results indicated that the combination of g-C 3 N 4 and BiOCOOH could exhibited greatly visible light absorbance and photo-generated charge separation efficiency, thereby resulting in the enhanced PC performance of BiOCOOH/g-C 3 N 4 composite photocatalyst. The optimal Bi/C molar rate in BiOCOOH/g-C 3 N 4 composite was determined to be 1/1, and the corresponding photodegradation rate for amido black 10B was 0.01794 min −1 , which was nearly 2.19 and 5.73 folds higher than that of pure g-C3N4 and BiOCOOH. The possible mechanism of the PC reaction was also discussed in detail. Furthermore, BiOCOOH/g-C 3 N 4 composite photocatalyst performed good reusability and stability even after four recycle utilization.