Enhanced Simulated Sun Light Photocatalytic Activity of α-Fe2O3 Modified g-C3N4 prepared In-situ

In this paper, alpha-Fe2O3/g-C3N4 composite photocatalysts were fabricated in-situ by a facile hydrothermal method and characterized by Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) method, X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), UV/Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and surface photovoltage spectroscopy (SPS), respectively. The photocatalytic activity of alpha-Fe2O3/g-C3N4 for decolorization of methyl orange (MO) aqueous solution was evaluated. The results show that alpha-Fe2O3/g-C3N4 composites exhibit higher photocatalytic performance than the pure g-C3N4 under simulated sun light irradiation. The remarkably increased performance of alpha-Fe2O3/g-C3N4 in photocatalysis could be attributed to the increased specific surface area, the enhanced light absorbance, the improved separation efficiency of photo-induced charge carriers and the strong interaction between alpha-Fe2O3 and g-C3N4. The enhanced mechanism was proposed and proven by SPS analysis.