Highly active photocatalytic asphalt pavement for NOx removal using iron-doped g-C₃N₄

Abstract

Low degradation efficiency limited the application of photocatalytic material in pavement construction. In this study, iron-doped g-C₃N₄ (Fe-C₃N₄) method was introduced to prepare a high active photocatalyst. The crystal structure and electronic structure of the Fe-C₃N₄ were calculated by the First Principles. NO removal efficiency was used to evaluate the activity of Fe-C₃N₄. The results indicated that the NO removal efficiency was 75.43% when Fe-doped content was 1%. Ultraviolet–Visible (UV–Vis) and Photoluminescence (PL) spectra shows that the Fe doped changed the band structure of g-C₃N₄, and reduced the band gap energy, which indicated that Fe-doped could improve the utilisation of visible light. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectra shows that the Fe doped did not change the crystal structure of g-C₃N₄. The NO removal efficiency of three methods was tested. The results indicated that the dispersion spraying method had the best degradation efficiency of 35.8%.

KEYWORDS:

• Photocatalytic material
• asphalt pavement
• iron doped g-C₃N₄
• NO removal efficiency
• dispersion spraying

Acknowledgements

The research was financially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China, Chongqing Technology Innovation and application development special project, Chongqing returned overseas students entrepreneurship and innovation support plan. The views in the paper only reflect those from the authors and may not necessarily the views from the sponsors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant Number 51978115]; Chongqing returned overseas students entrepreneurship and innovation support plan [Grant Number cx2019015]; Chongqing Technology Innovation and application development special project [Grant Number CSTC2019JSCX-MSXM1685].