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Bioremediation for Sustainable Environmental Cleanup

Table 17.1. Earlier reported works on g-C3N4-based photocatalytic water splitting.

Photocatalyst

Light Source

Photocatalysis Rate

References

TiO2-g-C3N4

Xenon lamp (320nm)

76.25 µmol·h−1

Qu et al. 2016

TiO2 nanodots/g-C3N4

Xenon lamp (300W)

H2 evolution rate=1318.3 µmol g−1

O2 evolution rate=638.7 µmol g−1

Jiang et al. 2022

N-doped ZnO-g-C3N4

PLS-SXE-300C UV lamp

152.7 µmol·h−1

Liu et al. 2019

S-Cu2O/g-C3N4

Xenon lamp (300W)

24.83 µmol·h−1

Gu et al. 2021

BiO2/g-C3N4

Xenon lamp (500nm)

8,542 µmol·g−1

Alhaddad et al. 2020

Mn3O4/g-C3N4

Xenon lamp (300W)

2700 mmol g–1 h–1

Li et al. 2021

g-C3N4/Nitrogen-Doped

Carbon Dots/WO3

Xenon lamp (300W)

3.27 mmol g–1 h–1

Song et al. 2021

MoO3-x-g-C3N4

Xenon lamp (300W)

22.8 mmol h−1

Guo et al. 2020

TiO2/Ti3C2/g-C3N4

Xenon lamp (300W)

2592 mmol·g−1

Hieu et al. 2021

ZnO/Au/g-C3N4

Xenon lamp (150W)

3.69 µmol h−1 cm−2

Wen et al. 2020

Table 17.2. A list of CO2 reduction applications of the metal oxide-based g-C3N4 photocatalysts.

Photocatalyst

Light Source

Photocatalysis Rate

References

NiO-g-C3N4

Xenon lamp (300 W)

4.17

Tang et al. 2018

g-C3N4 foam-Cu2O

350 W Lamp

8.182

Sun et al. 2019

ZnO/Au/g-C3N4

UV-Vi’s lamp (300W)

689.7 µmol/m2 (CO evolution)

Li et al. 2021

TiO2/g-C3N4

UV-Vi’s lamp (8W)

CH4 and CO yields of 72.2 and

56.2 µmol g–1

Wang et al. 2020

ZnO/g-C3N4

Xenon lamp (300 W)

The CH3OH production rate was

1.32 µmol h–1 g–1

Nie et al. 2018

g-C3N4/3D ordered

microporous (3DOM)-WO3

visible light

48.7 µmol h–1 g–1

Tang et al. 2022

NiTO3/g-C3N4

Xenon lamp

(300 W)

CH3OH production is

13.74 molg–1 h–1

Guo et al. 2021

17.5.1.3 Photodegradation of Organic Pollutants

Several environmental issues are brought on by the growth of an increasing number of dye-related

businesses, including textile, food and furniture manufacturers. Additionally, having an unfavorable

visual effect on water sources, organic dyes also cause wastewater to have a higher COD. Diverse

techniques such as adsorption, membrane separation and coagulation have been explored to remove

organic pollutants from effluents, but these only move organic dyes from the liquid phase of

wastewater to the solid phase. This creates secondary pollution in the environment. Most metal

oxides may degrade and transform organic colors into particles during photocatalysis, which uses

solar energy to start the reaction. The most stable dyes in water at room temperature are Rhodamine

B (RhB), Methylene Orange (MO) and Methylene Blue (MB) (Si et al. 2020). Since MB and RhB

are toxic dyes, the health of people and aquatic animals may be negatively impacted by their high

concentration. Wastewater treatment is a pressing issue because of the high resistivity of the RhB

and MB under various environmental conditions.

Therefore, providing a reliable and affordable technique to remove MB and RhB from sewage is

imperative. According to reports, the optimal composition for g-C3N4-ZnO nanocomposites is 30%

weight, which results in the maximum MB degradation efficiency (Liu et al. 2018). The more g-C3N4,

the more likely it is that electrons and holes will recombine, decreasing the photocatalytic activity.

Additionally, it should be noted that this composite’s RhB degrading efficiency is approximately

2.1 times greater than that of pure ZnO (Chen et al. 2018). g-C3N4-TiO2 heterojunction, in addition