Abstract
In this report, sol-gel method is used to prepare a g-C3N4/ZnCo2O4 Z-scheme heterojunction nanocomposite for hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)/persulfate (PS) assisted photocatalytic RhB dye degradation. Structural, crystalline, optical, and chemical compositions of the prepared nanocomposite are discussed with the help of several characterization techniques. The nanocomposite exhibits higher photocatalytic reaction rate constant of about 0.03 min-1 through H2O2 activation under neutral pH condition. Whereas, PS activated photocatalytic degra-dation reaction shows higher degradation efficiency of 93 % under acid condition. Both H2O2 and PS activated photocatalytic reactions shows center dot OH and center dot SO- radicals are the key active species for the dye degradation reaction which is confirmed through elemental trapping experiment. The recycle tests are performed to show the stability of the nanocomposite. At last, the possible photocatalytic degradation mechanism is proposed through the Z -scheme mechanism.