Graphitic Carbon Nitride Sputtered with Silver Nanoparticles for Efficient Photocatalytic Degradation of Rhodamine B Dye

Abstract

Graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) powder was synthesized using a thermal polymerization method. Silver nanoparticles were uniformly deposited on thin sheets of g-C3N4 using a simple sputtering method. Pure g-C3N4 and Ag/g-C3N4 were tested for photocatalytic degradation performance of Rhodamine B dye under visible light. The degradation tests show that photocatalytic activity of heterostructured Ag/g-C3N4 was greatly enhanced compared with that of pure g-C3N4 even with as little as 0.08 wt% added silver. The percentage of silver used is significantly lower than that used in previous studies of Ag/g-C3N4 composite catalysts. The Ag/g-C3N4 catalyst also shows excellent stability over multiple reaction cycles.