Inventive Visible-Light 2D/2D GC3N4/PVA@Biocl Photocatalyst for Improving Decontamination of Hazardous Dye from Wastewater: Modeling and Optimization

In this study, an efficient nanocomposite gC3 N4 /PVA@BiOCl was synthesized hydrothermally using environmentally sustainable polyvinyl alcohol polymer and gC3 N4 decorated by BiOCl. All chemical, structural, morphological, and photocatalytic features were examined, by examining the band structures of the catalyst's components, it is achievable to effectively create a unique Z-scheme heterojunction, which produces additional active sites and speeds up the process of separating the photo-generated species in addition to improving the light absorption efficiency. Their utility to eliminate a positively charged dyestuff, basic blue (BB) furthermore a negatively charged dyestuff, orange G (OG) was investigated. In contrast to single-phases BiOCl or gC3 N4 , the results showed that the gC3 N4 /PVA@BiOCl photocatalyst showed more degrading activity for BB and OG. The gC3 N4 / PVA@BiOCl exhibited a maximum photocatalytic activity of 92.7% toward the remediation of orange G while degrading BB dye with 81.9% within 300 min. The response surface methodology (RSM) was utilized to statistically assess the influences of initial dye concentration and the photocatalyst dose on the degradation performance. Under optimum conditions of photocatalyst dose 0.85g/L, initial dye concentration of 10 ppm the degradation reached 100% and 98% for OG and BB dye respectively. The radical trapping studies confirmed that •O2 - radicals and h+ are the primary active forms of gC3 N4 /PVA@ BiOCl during photocatalysis. gC3 N4 /PVA@BiOCl composite retained more than 93% of its initial degradation efficiency in the subsequent photocatalytic degradation of OG dye even after the fourth cycle.