Synthesis, Characterization, and Photocatalytic Activity of g-C3N4/GaN-ZnO Composite

Recently, photocatalysis process has shown great potential as a low-cost, environmentally friendly, and sustainable method for the water/wastewater treatment. Among that, g-C3N4 is one of the most promising photocatalyst and widely used for a variety of applications. In spite of some unique features such as strong reduction ability, active under visible light, nontoxic, and high stability, g-C3N4 photocatalytic capability under visible light is limited due to fast recombination rate of reactive charges. To deal with this issue, in this study, g-C3N4 is combined with GaN-ZnO for reducing the recombination rate of charge carriers and increasing the active sites. The g-C3N4/GaN-ZnO composite was characterized by several methods such as SEM, EDX, XRD, FT-IR, UV-Vis, and BET. It is also observed that the composite with outstanding features can work effectively under visible light; thus, it is likely to be widely applied in environment treatment, especially in antibiotic residue with more than 90% of tetracycline was decomposed after 3 hours.