Interface-engineered magnetically recoverable CoFe2O4/g-C3N4/TiO2 and CoFe2O4/g-C3N4/ZnO ternary nanocomposites for efficient photocatalytic wastewater treatment

Abstract

The study reports a facile method for fabricating ternary nanocomposites comprising TiO₂ and ZnO. Herein, a simple precipitation method was used to prepare cobalt ferrite (CFO) nanoparticles (NPs), followed by thermal decomposition of melamine in a physical mixture with CFO to produce a CoFe₂O₄–g-C₃N₄ (CFO–CN) core–shell nanostructure. Furthermore, the sonication and reflux-assisted precipitation method was employed for preparing ternary nanocomposites. The structural integrity of fabricated nanostructures was studied by XRD analysis. XPS analysis was used to determine the surface elemental composition and the chemical states of the present elements. The varied functional groups related to the different phases in the nanocomposites were probed using FTIR analysis. The inheritance of the magnetic properties of nanocomposites was confirmed from the VSM results, indicating the ferromagnetic nature of all the samples. The optical band gap was evaluated from the Tauc's relation for absorption spectroscopy data. The photocatalytic measurements were performed using MB, MO, and RhB dyes on all the prepared samples under a UV source. Enhancement in catalytic efficiency was observed with H₂O₂ inclusion, while the reduction in the efficiency was observed in the scavenger tests, indicating the influence of different radicals on the photocatalysis reaction. Kinetic models were employed to study the catalytic reaction mechanism. A reusability test was conducted to check the stability of the prepared materials.