Development of nickel doped graphitic carbon nitride (GCN) photocatalyst for enhanced degradation of textile pollutant under visible light irradiation

An efficient rare earth metal (nickel) doped graphitic carbon nitride photocatalyst is developed by a facile synthesis approach. The synthesized nickel doped graphitic carbon nitride (x-NGCN) is employed for photocatalytic degradation of organic dye methylene blue (MB) simulated textile wastewater. It is observed that Ni doping of GCN enhances the optical absorption to such an extent that it efficiently degrades the MB dye under simple LED white light (5 W), mainly consisting of visible light range. Hence Ni doping resulted in sensitivity towards visible light range of spectrum due to narrowing of bandgap, thus increasing the photocatalytic performance. The prepared photocatalysts are characterized using various spectroscopy tools to investigate the crystallinity, morphology, functional groups, optical absorption, and charge separation efficiency.