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White Synthesis of ZnO/TiO2/g-C3N4 Nanoparticles and their Photocatalytic Activity for Polyvinyl Chloride Microplastic Film Degradation
Summary
Researchers synthesized novel ZnO/TiO2/g-C3N4 nanoparticles via the sol-gel method and investigated their photocatalytic activity for degrading polyvinyl chloride microplastic films under sunlight, characterizing the composite using FTIR, UV-vis DRS, XRD, XPS, HR-TEM, SEM-EDX, and TGA.
A novel photodegradable ZnO/TiO2/g-C3N4 (zinc oxide/titanium dioxide/graphitic carbon nitride) nanoparticle (NP) was synthesized using the sol-gel method and sunlight-mediated degradation of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) microplastic (MP) films. The optical and structural properties of the sol-gel method were investigated using a variety of characterization methods, like Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV-vis DRS), X-ray diffractometer (XRD) analysis, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis, and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Degradation study results suggest that the photocatalytic activity of ZnO/TiO2/g-C3N4/PVC nanocomposites (NCs) films was greater than that of pure PVC films, ZnO/PVC NCs films, TiO2/PVC NCs films, g-C3N4/PVC NCs films, ZnO/g-C3N4/PVC NCs films, TiO2/g-C3N4/PVC NCs films, and ZnO/TiO2/PVC NCs films. Because of their increased optical absorption and efficient suppression of photo-produced charge carriers’ recombination, the ZnO/TiO2/g-C3N4/PVC NCs films showed higher photocatalytic degradation than various PVC films. Thus, PVC films with ZnO/TiO2/g-C3N4 (5:5:2% wt) composite showed degradation of around 40% among pure PVC films, ZnO/PVC NCs films, TiO2/PVC NCs films, g-C3N4/PVC NCs films, ZnO/g-C3N4/PVC NCs films, TiO2/g-C3N4/PVC NCs films, and ZnO/TiO2/PVC NCs films under visible sunlight over a short period of 30 days (240 h). The formation of carbonyl groups (-C=O) in the degradation product of PVC was confirmed by FT-IR analysis. When compared to the original PVC MPs, the ZnO/TiO2/g-C3N4/PVC NCs films showed a significant decrease in crystallinity and carbonyl indexes, as much as 2.84% lower. The present research also suggests a photocatalytic mechanism, which may explain the increased photocatalytic activity.