One-pot synthesis of novel ternary Fe3N/Fe2O3/C3N4 photocatalyst for efficient removal of rhodamine B and CO2 reduction

The novel ternary Fe3N/Fe2O3/C3N4 photocatalyst was prepared by thermal pyrolysis of potassium ferricyanide in melamine. The structural, morphological and physico-chemical properties of the photocatalyst were characterized by a multi-technique approach. Photocatalytic experiments supported that 0.04 g of the photocatalyst was able to totally remove 5 ppm of rhodamine B (RhB) solution under acidic condition with the rate constant of 0.1 min−1 in less than 30 min. According to spin-trapping ESR analysis, •OH radicals play a key role in the RhB photodegradation implying Z-scheme mechanism is applicable to our system. Moreover, the evolution rate of CO and CH4 over the photocatalyst was 8.03 and 1.6 μmol g−1 h−1, respectively, which was much higher than the reference photocatalysts under the same conditions. The enhanced photocatalytic performance of this system is attributed to the unique ternary heterojunction between the interfaces of g-C3N4, Fe3N and Fe2O3, which effectively suppressed the charge carriers recombination.