Inorganic salt-assisted fabrication of graphitic carbon nitride with enhanced photocatalytic degradation of Rhodamine B

With the assistance of inorganic salt, graphitic carbon nitride nanosheets were prepared with increased mesoporous surface area for promoting the photocatalytic performance compared with the one without. Series of photocatalysts with different mass ratio of NH4NO3/melamine were prepared and characterized by XRD, FT-IR, XPS, TEM, SEM, N-2 physical adsorption, UV-vis and PL spectrometries. Photocatalytic degradation of RhB under visible light irradiation (lambda> 420 nm) was applied to evaluate catalytic properties. The catalytic activity maximizes at an intermediate NH4NO3/melamine ratio at 0.15, giving a maximum performance, RhB totally being degraded within 30 min and kinetic constant reaching 0.167 min(-1) that is 4.5 times as high as that on BCN. The NH4NO3 assisted procedure is a facile, repeatable, environmental friendly, and efficient method for preparing g-C3N4 nanosheets with high photocatalytic performance.