Synthesis of foamed zinc oxide–silica spheres coupled with g-C3N4 nanosheets for visible light photocatalysis

Proficient visible light-driven photocatalyst for waste water remediation has gained immense attention in decades. Herein, novel foamed zinc oxide–silica spheres and carbon nitride nanocomposite (FZSS@CN) were fabricated by hydrothermal and calcination treatments. The resulting nanocomposite was passed through complete characterization profiling for structural, optical and kinetics properties. The photocatalytic performance was investigated by the degradation of textile dyes such as methylene blue (MB) and Rhodamine B (RhB) under visible light. The optimized nanocomposite (FZSS@CN-10) exhibited the superior photocatalytic degradation performance up to 95% for MB and 90% for RhB with rate constant (k) = 0.0516 min−1 and 0.0464 min−1, respectively. This excellent performance was attributed to the hierarchical morphology, high surface area and mesoporous channels with open cavities. This uniqueness is responsible to enhance the optical and kinetic capabilities of the material for effective photocatalysis. More interestingly, the crystalline structure of the recycled sample has more sharp peaks than fresh sample. This phenomenal behavior leads to a new method for the fabrication of effective materials in this field.