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S-Scheme ZnO/g-C3N5 Visible Light Active Photocatalyst for Rhodamine B Dye Degradation and Hg Sensing Applications

Roopashree Bangalore Nagesh, Gurushantha Kariyanna, Nagaraju Kottam, Ashly Panichithadathil Chandran, Meena Subramaniam, Keshavamurthy Kempaiah, Raghu Gunigollahalli Kempegowda, Atthasit Tawai

Abstract


The main focus of the current work, the host material (ZnO and g-C3N5 NPs) and its composites (ZnO/g-C3N5) were synthesized by precipitation and hydrothermal methods using zinc nitrate and melamine. The final materials were exposed to photocatalytic and electrochemical activities after being thoroughly characterized by PXRD, UV-visible DRS Spectroscopy, FT-IR, XPS, SEM-EDS, and TEM. There are diffraction peaks in the PXRD pattern that belong to both the ZnO and g-C3N5 samples. The estimated band gap energy decreases from 3.08 (ZnO) to 2.74 ZnO/g-C3N5 eV. The ZnO/g-C3N5 shows enhanced photocatalytic activity of 97.53% for degradation of RhB dye in visible light irradiation. Further, the ZnO/g-C3N5 composite material is a selective modifier pattern for mercury detection. This synthesized material shows better sensitivity at the lowest detection limit of 1nM. Hence, this work shows the novel synthesis for the effective photocatalyst for water treatment and as an efficient sensor for the detection of mercury levels in the wastewater.

Keywords



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DOI: 10.14416/j.asep.2025.06.001

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