Rapid Fabrication of MgO@g-C3N4 Heterojunction for Photocatalytic Nitric Oxide degradation under Visible Light

Nitric Oxide (NO) is one of air pollutant that is responsible for its impacts in various environmental matrices, human health and other biota. Apart from various technology to treat NO pollution, photocatalytic oxidation process (PCO) under visible light is considered as an effective process to achieve the feat. This study uses PCO to degrade NO under visible light with the help of photocatalyst. Herein, the MgO@g-C 3 N 4 heterojunctions are synthesized by one-step pyrolysis of MgO and Urea commercial at 550 o C for 2 h. By this way, the photocatalytic NO degradation performance is significantly increased under visible light irradiation. In detail, the photocatalytic efficiency of the MgO@g-C 3 N 4 composites reaches 75.4% with 1.2-fold that of pure g-C 3 N 4 and 4.5-fold that of commercial MgO. Furthermore, the characterizations of the materials are determined by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transforms infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The morphology of the materials is determined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). DRS determines the optical properties and bandgap of the materials. The bandgap of the materials decreases with the increasing amount of the MgO. Besides, the NO conversion, DeNOx index, apparent quantum efficiency (AQE), the trapping test, and electron spin resonance (ESR) are invested to understand the photocatalytic mechanism of the materials. The high reusability of the MgO@g-C 3 N 4 composites is determined by 5 times recycling test.