Synergetic effect of graphene oxide and C3N4 as co-catalyst for enhanced photocatalytic performance of dyes on Yb2(MoO4)3/YbMoO4 nanocomposite

Abstract

Here in, we report synthesis of novel hybrid photocatalyst by assembling graphene oxide (GO) and carbon nitride over Yb2(MoO4)3/YbMoO4 nanocomposite in order to investigate degradation of rhodamine B, methylene blue, and methyl orange. In addition, different capping agents (e.g. PEG, PVP, SDS, CTAB and Triton X-100) were utilized to investigate their impact on the morphology and particle size of the Yb2(MoO4)3/YbMoO4 nanocomposite. On the top of that, different parameters such as various mass ratio of precursors (GO, C3N4, Yb2(MoO4)3/YbMoO4), pH value, photocatalyst concentration were altered to investigate their impact on the degradation efficiency. Degradation results reveal that Yb2(MoO4)3/YbMoO4/GO and Yb2(MoO4)3/YbMoO4/C3N4 exhibits higher photocatalytic activity in comparison with pure Yb2(MoO4)3/YbMoO4. The crystalline phases, structure, morphology, and optical properties were characterized by a couple of techniques including X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, and energy dispersive X-ray microanalysis. According to the BET results, Yb2(MoO4)3/YbMoO4/GO has specific surface area 1.5 times higher than pure Yb2(MoO4)3/YbMoO4. © 2019 Elsevier Ltd and Techna Group S.r.l