Facile construction of efficient WO/VO coupled g-CN ternary composite photocatalyst for environmental emergent aqueous pollutant degradation: Stability, degradation reaction pathway and effect of pH evaluation.

Currently, one of the primary challenges that human society must overcome is the task of decreasing the amount of energy used and the adverse effects that it has on the environment. The daily increase in liquid waste (comprising organic pollutants) is a direct result of the creation and expansion of new companies, causing significant environmental disruption. Water contamination is attributed to several industries such as textile, chemical, poultry, dairy, and pharmaceutical. In this study, we present the successful degradation of methylene blue dye using g-CN (GCN) mixed with WO and VO composites (GCN/WO/VO ternary composite) as a photocatalyst, prepared by a simple mechanochemistry method. The GCN/WO/VO ternary composite revealed a notable enhancement in photocatalytic performance, achieving around 97% degradation of aqueous methylene blue (MB). This performance surpasses that of the individual photocatalysts, namely pure GCN, GCN/WO, and GCN/VO composites. Furthermore, the GCN/WO/VO ternary composite exhibited exceptional stability even after undergoing five consecutive cycles. The exceptional photocatalytic activity of the GCN/WO/VO ternary composite can be ascribed to the synergistic effect of metal-free GCN and metal oxides, resulting in the alteration of the band gap and suppression of charge recombination in the ternary photocatalyst. This study offers a better platform for understanding the characteristics of materials and their photocatalytic performance under visible light conditions.