Nitrogen-Doped Graphitic Carbon Dots Embedded in Carbon Nitride Scaffolds for Water Decontamination

Toshali Bhoyar, Nishprah Saraswat, M. V. Jyothirmai, Akanksha Gupta, Sunita Kumari Malla, Jiyeon Park, Devthade Vidyasagar, Suresh S. Umare

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Scopus citations

Abstract

Functionalized carbon dots (CDs) exhibit intriguing photo-exciton dynamics. CDs can donate or accept electrons depending on their functional groups and electrostatic characteristics. We exploited the electron-accepting capability of nitrogen-doped graphitic carbon dots (N-g-CDs) to improve the charge-carrier separation of the polymeric carbon nitride (PCN) photocatalyst. l-Aspartic acid pyrolyzed at 320 °C yielded ∼25 nm size N-g-CDs that were embedded with PCN. The in-plane infiltration of nanosized N-g-CDs increased the surface area of PCN from 11.5 to 104.9 m2 g-1. The N-g-CDs/PCN hybrid catalyst tested for photocatalytic chromium reduction evidenced about a 3-fold higher rate than PCN. Also, the antibiotic tetracycline and rhodamine B dye rapidly degraded with faster degradation kinetics. The carrier dynamic analysis and computational investigations suggest that the electron acceptor feature of N-g-CDs governs the effective separation of photo-excitons and the high surface area of N-g-CDs/PCN contributes to photoactivity enhancement. This study offers insights into designing high-performance metal-free photocatalysts for water treatment applications.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)3484-3496
Number of pages13
JournalACS Applied Nano Materials
Volume6
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - 10 Mar 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 American Chemical Society.

Funding

T.B. acknowledges the Director, VNIT, Nagpur, for the doctoral fellowship. We would like to thank the Department of Science and Technology Fund for Improvement of Science and Technology Infrastructure (DST-FIST) through project no. SR/FST/CSI-279/2016(C) for providing the instrumentation facility at the Department of Chemistry, VNIT, Nagpur. We acknowledge SAIF Bombay, SAIF Madras, and IISc Bangalore for the central instrumentation facility. M.V.J. would like to thank the HPC center, IIT Kanpur for providing the computational facilities.

FundersFunder number
Indian Institute of Science
Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology, IndiaSR/FST/CSI-279/2016
Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology

    Keywords

    • chromium reduction
    • nitrogen-doped graphitic carbon dots
    • photooxidation
    • polymeric carbon nitride
    • tetracycline

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