LED visible light assisted photo-oxidation of acetaminophen using one-step synthesis of Cu,Fe@g-C3N4 nanosheet – Activated persulfate system in aqueous solutions

In this work, the synthesis of Iron (Fe) and Copper (Cu) co-doped g-C3N4 was performed using the thermal decomposition of urea while iron nitrate and copper nitrate were used as dopant precursors. The fabricated catalyst (Fe-Cu@g-C3N4) was coupled with visible light and used for acetaminophen (APAP) degradation. The synthesized catalyst was characterized via several techniques including XRD, BET, BJH, SEM, TEM, EDX, EDS Dot mapping, DLS, and UV–Vis deflective reflectance spectroscopy. The performed characterization tests confirmed the successful synthesis of Fe-Cu co-doped g-C3N4 with high purity, nano-sheet structure and high porosity (79.93 m2/g). The complete APAP decomposition efficiency was achieved under optimal experimental conditions including pH of 11, catalyst dosage of 10 mg/L, PS dosage of 1 mM, and APAP concentration of 4 mg/L. The scavenging tests confirmed the major contribution of sulfate radicals and consequently, hydroxyl radicals for APAP removal. In addition, the kinetics of APAP degradation was studied and it revealed the pseudo first–order kinetics with 0.0698 min−1 rate constant. Finally, a plausible and tentative decomposition pathway was proposed for APAP degradation. The results of this study confirmed that the LED/catalyst (Cu, Fe@g-C3N4)/PS process could be an efficient and robust process for antibiotic-containing wastewater including hospital wastewater.