- Thesis topic: Photodegradation of Nitrogen oxide by g-C3N4 and g-C3N4 coated Fiber Glass

- Doi: https://doi.org/10.6840/cycu202100801

- Abstract: 

        Photocatalytic oxidation (PCO) is an advanced technology operating to degrade the air pollutants from the indoor and outdoor environment. Photocatalysis is also an environmental remediation technology used to decontamination of air pollutants to improve air quality. Air quality is degrading daily due to the excessive amount of NOx emissions into the environment from different sources such as motor vehicles. G-C3N4 is an emerging photocatalyst for NOx degradation. Due to its unique properties, it is widely used in photocatalytic activities. In this study, g-C3N4 was prepared by thermal decomposition called the one-step synthesis method to enhance the photocatalytic performance over NOx without adding any other agent. First, prepared g-C3N4 was used as raw material. The g-C3N4, and g-C3N4, coated with glass fiber used as a photocatalyst in the lab-scale reactor under solar light and visible light. The influencing parameters in the photocatalytic activity of NOx, such as amount, humidity, irradiation, NOx concentration, and flow rate, were also studied, affecting the catalyst's performance. By the characterization XRD, DRS, FTIR, BET, ESR, XPS, EPR and TEM, it has been proved that g-C3N4 has Nano-rods on the surface of the catalyst, which enhances the photocatalytic activity of g-C3N4 and g-C3N4@fiber glass over solar and visible light and performed an effective redox reaction by which the final concentration of NOx decreasing rapidly. The degradation efficiencies of g-C3N4 over solar and visible light are 86.1%, 77.4% respectively, while g-C3N4@fiber glass over solar and visible light is 99.8%, 99.9% respectively. In addition after 5 cycles, the photocatalyst reuse rate decreased by 4.1% under solar light and 3.2% under visible light.

Keywords: Photocatalyst, Remediation, Air quality, Irradiation, Thermal decomposition.