Synthesis and Photocatalytic Performance of g-C3N4/ZnO Nanocomposites for the Efficient Degradation of Dyes Under Sunlight

In recent years, carbon-derived nanomaterials have been efficiently utilized for wastewater treatment. Herein, we report a facile route to synthesize g-C3N4/ZnO nanocomposites (NCs) by utilizing thermal condensation methods and demonstrateits photocatalytic performance against Rhodamine-B (RhB) and Reactive blue-171 (Rb171) under open air sunlight. The crystalline nature of synthesized NCs was examined by utilizing X-ray diffraction; however, their purity was evaluated through Fourier transform spectroscopy (FT-IR), which conveyed that the synthesized NCs exhibited excellent crystallinity and purity. Moreover, the g-C3N4/ZnO NCs displayed efficient photocatalytic activity of 82.60 and 74.46% for RhB and Rb171, respectively, in 125 min of sunlight exposure. The degradation of the dyes followed the pseudo-first-order kinetics with apparent rate constants of 0.01531 and 0.01012 min−1 for RhB and Rb171, respectively, and their half-life was found to be 45.27 and 68.49 min.