Retraction notice to “Cobalt oxide coupled with graphitic carbon nitride composite heterojunction for efficient Z-scheme photocatalytic environmental pollutants degradation performance” [Environ. Res. 235 (2023) 116574]

This article has been retracted: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (https://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy). This article has been retracted at the request of the Editor. The corresponding author was contacted regarding concerns detailed on PubPeer at https://pubpeer.com/publications/BF2710B806B8ACB7774E186A11DAD7#. Whilst raw FTIR data was not provided by the author, upon close examination by the editor of the FTIR data published in both articles, minor differences were noted. Consequently, it was not possible to determine conclusively whether or not there had been any scientific malpractice. However, an unauthorised authorship change was made when the revised version of this paper was submitted, following suggestions for relatively minor revisions from the reviewers and Guest Editor, with authors Sondos Abdullah Alqarni and Saravanan Pandiaraj being added to the paper. No satisfactory explanation was given for this change, nor was it approved by the editor. This authorship change breaches the policies of the journal and as a result, the editors no longer have confidence in this paper and are retracting it. The journal apologises for not having identified the problematic authorship change during the review process and for any resulting inconvenience. Shanmugam Vignesh and Pandiaraj do not agree with the retraction and disputes the grounds for it.