School of Chemical Sciences and Advanced Materials Research Center, Indian Institute of Technology Mandi, Kamand, Mandi, 175075, Himachal Pradesh, India.
Department of Chemistry, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea, SA2 8PP, Wales, United Kingdom.
Chemosphere. 2022 Dec;308(Pt 2):136297. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.136297. Epub 2022 Sep 2.
The continuous rise in the amount of industrial and pharmaceutical waste in water sources is an alarming concern. Effective strategies should be developed for the treatment of pharmaceutical industrial waste. Hence the alternative renewable source of energy, such as solar energy, should be utilized for a sustainable future. Herein, a series of Au plasmonic nanoparticle decorated ternary photocatalysts comprising graphitic carbon nitride and TiC MXene has been designed to degrade colourless pharmaceutical pollutants, cefixime under visible light irradiation. These photocatalysts were synthesized by varying the amount of TiC MXene, and their catalytic potential was explored. The optimized photocatalyst having 3 wt% TiC MXene achieved 64.69% removal of the pharmaceutical pollutant, cefixime within 105 min of exposure to visible light. The presence of the Au nanoparticles and MXene in the nanocomposite facilitates the excellent charge carrier separation and increased the number of active sites due to the formation of interfacial contact with graphitic carbon nitride nanosheets. Besides, the plasmonic effect of the Au nanoparticles improves the absorption of light causing enhanced photocatalytic performance of the nanocomposite. Based on the obtained results, a plausible mechanism has been formulated to understand the contribution of different components in photocatalytic activity. In addition, the optimized photocatalyst shows excellent activity and can be reused for up to three cycles without any significant loss in its photocatalytic performance. Overall, the current work provides deeper physical insight into the future development of MXene graphitic carbon nitride-based plasmonic ternary photocatalysts.
工业和制药废水中的含量不断增加，这是一个令人担忧的问题。应该制定有效的策略来处理制药工业废物。因此，应该利用太阳能等替代可再生能源，为可持续的未来做准备。在此，设计了一系列由氮化碳和 TiC MXene 组成的 Au 等离子体纳米颗粒修饰的三元光催化剂，以在可见光照射下降解无色的药物污染物头孢克肟。通过改变 TiC MXene 的用量来合成这些光催化剂，并探索了它们的催化潜力。在优化的光催化剂中，当 TiC MXene 的含量为 3wt%时，在暴露于可见光 105 分钟内，药物污染物头孢克肟的去除率达到了 64.69%。纳米复合材料中 Au 纳米粒子和 MXene 的存在促进了优异的载流子分离，并由于与氮化碳纳米片形成界面接触而增加了活性位点的数量。此外，Au 纳米粒子的等离子体效应提高了光的吸收，从而增强了纳米复合材料的光催化性能。基于获得的结果，提出了一种合理的机制来理解不同成分对光催化活性的贡献。此外，优化后的光催化剂表现出优异的活性，并且可以重复使用三到五个周期，而不会对其光催化性能造成明显损失。总的来说，目前的工作为基于 MXene 氮化碳的等离子体三元光催化剂的未来发展提供了更深入的物理理解。
