In recent years, presence of pharmaceuticals in the aquatic environment has been of growing interest as it poses a dangerous threat to aquatic organisms and human health. The need for enhanced methods to reduce them in the environment has become evident. Advanced oxidation processes represent a good choice for the treatment of hazardous non-biodegradable pollutants like Diclofenac (DFC) and other antibiotics from the aqueous medium. Herein, boron and phosphorus co-doped one dimensional C3N4 (BPCN) has been successfully synthesized by a facile hydrothermal–assisted thermal polymerization approach as effective photocatalyst for photocatalytic degradation of DFC. Subsequently, the photocatalytic activity of BPCN was evaluated through the degradation of DFC under visible light irradiation of 465 nm. BPCN could achieve 99% degradation of DFC at 10 mg L-1 initial concentration within 90 min of irradiation. The effect of environmental parameters including initial DFC concentration, pH and the presence of various anions were studied by the measurement of the rate constant for DFC decomposition. Superior performance photocatalytic activity using BPCN is achieved in the pH 5.0 and initial DFC concentration up to 30 mg L-1. The enhanced degradation abilities of newly developed one dimensional BPCN, can be attributed to the increased surface area, visible-light response and photoinduced charge separation. These results clearly demonstrate that the metal free boron and phosphorus co-doped C3N4 is a reliable green technology approach to prepare visible-light-responsive photocatalyst for application in the decomposition of antibiotics and other emerging pollutants for water treatment.

Boron, phosphorus co-doped one dimensional graphitic carbon nitride for photodegradation of diclofenac

2019 Spring National Meeting

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