Fabrication of novel flower-like Sr₃(VO₄)₂ anchored on g-C₃N₄: Visible-light-triggered degradation of organic contaminants

ABSTRACT

Herein, designing of sustainable flower-like novel Sr₃(VO₄)₂/g-C₃N₄ (SrVO/CN) nanocatalyst was successfully fabricated by easier hydrothermal method and utilised as a visible-light-driven for the degradation of methylene blue (MB) dye and ciprofloxacin (CF) antibiotic for the first time. The physicochemical behaviour of the nanocomposite was confirmed by various analytical techniques. These results confirm the successive development of flower-like Sr₃(VO₄)₂ anchored on the g-C₃N₄ layer. The SrVO/CN can serve as an excellent catalyst for the decomposition of MB dyes and CF drugs under visible light irradiation. The results from UV-Vis spectroscopy evidently showed that the catalytic efficiency of SrVO/CN nanocomposite is higher than pure Sr₃(VO₄)₂ nano-flowers. The SrVO/CN nanocomposite explores degradation efficiency of about 88.20% and 92.50% for MB and CF drug respectively. Furthermore, the stability and recycle behaviour of the SrVO/CN nanocomposites exhibit excellent effects. Hence, as prepared SrVO/CN behave as an example of the ‘Killing of two birds with one arrow’ approach.

KEYWORDS:

• Sr₃(VO₄)₂/g-C₃N₄
• visible-light-activated photocatalyst
• degradation
• methylene blue
• ciprofloxacin
• stability

CRediT authorship contribution statement

K. Leeladevi: Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing - original draft, Data curation. M. Arunpandian: Resources, Validation, Visualization, Formal analysis. J. Vinoth Kumar: Formal analysis. Jeong-Won Lee: Formal analysis, Data curation. E.R. Nagarajan: Supervision, Writing - review & editing.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).