Facile Fabrication of Novel SrMoO4/g-C3N4 Hybrid Composite for High-Performance Photocatalytic Degradation of Dye Pollutant under Sunlight

The exploitation of the efficient hybrid composite materials for environmental remediation is highly demanding area. In the present work, pristine SrMoO4 (SMO), g-C3N4 (G-CN) and SrMoO4/g-C3N4 (SMO/G-CN) hybrid composite materials have been synthesized for the first time by facile mixing and heating methodology. The fabricated materials are subsequently characterized by various spectroscopic techniques. Phase analysis was carried out by PXRD study as well as morphology and elemental analysis were investigated by FE-SEM, EDS and XPS studies. The thermal stability of synthesized materials was determined by TGA as well as optical properties were confirmed by UV-Vis DRS and PL studies, electrochemical analysis by EIS studies. The results reveals the optimized SMO/G-CN-10 composite photocatalyst exhibits superior performance for the photocatalytic degradation of Rhodamine B (Rh B) dye under direct sunlight irradiation and rate of photocatalytic efficiency of SMO/G-CN-10 (0.0976 min(-1)) is 4 and 40 times higher as compared to those of pure G-CN (0.0245 min(-1)) and SMO (0.0024 min(-1)) respectively. Good interfacial interactions between the G-CN and SMO in SMO/G-CN-10 composite helps in the separation and efficient transfer of photo-induced excitons by inhibiting the recombination of excitons. The trapping experiment results reveals that O-2(.-) are the major reactive species. It was noted that our composite SMO/G-CN-10 is found to be stable even after four successive runs. Furthermore a suitable mechanism has been proposed for its enhanced photocatalytic activity. Altogether, in the present investigation, a new route for the synthesis of efficient visible light active photocatalysts has been reported which is not only beneficial for environmental remediation applications but might also be used for the water splitting and CO2 reduction.