An innovative fabrication of g-C3N4-ZrO2 nanocomposite with enhanced photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue under UV-visible light

This work has exhibited enhanced photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB) utilising g-C3N4-ZrO2 nanocomposites. The melamine and biosynthesized ZrO2 nanoparticle mixture was uniformly ground and heated to create the g-C3N4-ZrO2 nanocomposites. The g-C3N4-ZrO2 photo-catalysts were studied using the following spectral techniques: XRD, FT-IR, TEM, DRS, BET, UV-Vis, DRS, TGA, EDS, and PL. The results demonstrate that g-C(3)N4-ZrO2 nanocomposites had a lower band gap of roughly 3.4 eV compared to ZrO2 (4.9 eV), a spherical shape with sizes between 10 and 15 nm, a surface area of 30.31 m(2)/g, and other properties. To destroy an MB dye solution (95% within 120 min), the g-C(3)N4-ZrO2 shown improved photocatalytic activity than g-C3N4 and ZrO2. This is attributed to the phenomena of increased separation of photo-generated charge carriers resulting from the heterojunction among the interfaces of g-C3N4 and ZrO2. In addition, the g-C3N4-ZrO2 sample demonstrated reasonable stability over the course of five cycle runs, indicating that it may be more effective than g-C(3)N4 and ZrO2 at removing organic wastewater pollutants. As a result, the environmentally friendly photo-catalyst could be very helpful for the treatment of dye-containing effluents.