Abstract
Hazardous dye substances discharged from the textile and dyestuff industries not only threaten local the surrounding ecosystems but are also hard to degraded. We report the preparation of process for a photocatalytic membrane device that can degrade dye pollution under visible light. This filtration membrane, with a well-organized multilayer structure, simultaneously achieves continuous and flow-through separation of degradation products. Cellulose nanofibers (CNFs) were used as a template for nanosheet C3N4 (NS C3N4) preparation; the performance for the photocatalytic degradation of dyes improved as the morphology changed from bulking to nanosheet. NS C3N4 was then attached to the surface of a prepared CNF membrane via vacuum filtration. This device exhibited high efficiency (the degradation rates of both Rhodamine B and Methylene blue both reached 96%), high flux (above 160 L·h−1·m−2·bar−1) and excellent stability (maintaining steady flux and high separation were maintained after 4 h). This easy-preparation, easy-scale-up, and low-cost process provides a new method of fabricating photocatalytic membrane devices for dye wastewater treatment.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Bora, L. V.; Mewada, R. K. Visible/solar light active photocatalysts for organic effluent treatment: Fundamentals, mechanisms and parametric review. Renew. Sust. Energ. Rev. 2017, 76, 1393–1421.
Liu, P. T.; Liu, Y. G.; Ye, W. C.; Ma, J.; Gao, D. Q. Flower-like N-doped MoS2 for photocatalytic degradation of RhB by visible light irradiation. Nanotechnology 2016, 27, 225403.
Saha, N.; Rahman, M. S.; Ahmed, M. B.; Zhou, J. L.; Ngo, H. H.; Guo, W. S. Industrial metal pollution in water and probabilistic assessment of human health risk. J. Environ. Manage. 2017, 185, 70–78.
Tabassum, S.; Zhang, Y. J.; Zhang, Z. J. An integrated method for palm oil mill effluent (POME) treatment for achieving zero liquid discharge—A pilot study. J. Clean. Prod. 2015, 95, 148–155.
Wang, Y.; Wang, X. C.; Antonietti, M. Polymeric graphitic carbon nitride as a heterogeneous organocatalyst: From photochemistry to multipurpose catalysis to sustainable chemistry. Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2012, 51, 68–89.
Wang, J. L.; Xu, L. J. Advanced oxidation processes for wastewater treatment: Formation of hydroxyl radical and application. Crit. Rev. Environ. Sci. Technol. 2012, 42, 251–325.
Anwer, H.; Mahmood, A.; Lee, J.; Kim, K. H.; Park, J. W.; Yip, A. C. K. Photocatalysts for degradation of dyes in industrial effluents: Opportunities and challenges. Nano. Res. 2019, 12, 955–972.
Guo, Y. R.; Liu, Q.; Li, Z. H.; Zhang, Z. G.; Fang, X. M. Enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen evolution performance of mesoporous graphitic carbon nitride Co-doped with potassium and iodine. Appl. Catal. B Environ. 2018, 221, 362–370.
Wang, X. S.; Zhou, C.; Shi, R.; Liu, Q. Q.; Waterhouse, G. I. N.; Wu, L. Z.; Tung, C. H.; Zhang, T. R. Supramolecular precursor strategy for the synthesis of holey graphitic carbon nitride nanotubes with enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen evolution performance. Nano. Res. 2019, 12, 2385–2389.
Zhao, Z. W.; Sun, Y. J.; Dong, F. Graphitic carbon nitride based nanocomposites: A review. Nanoscale 2015, 7, 15–37.
Hao, Q.; Jia, G. H.; Wei, W.; Vinu, A.; Wang, Y.; Arandiyan, H.; Ni, B. J. Graphitic carbon nitride with different dimensionalities for energy and environmental applications. Nano. Res. 2018, 13, 18–37.
Klemm, P.; Kramer, F.; Moritz, S.; Lindström, T.; Ankerfors, M.; Gray, D.; Dorris, A. Nanocelluloses: A new family of nature-based materials. Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2011, 50, 5438–5466.
Yang, W. G.; Feng, Y. H.; He, H. Z.; Yang, Z. T. Environmentally-friendly extraction of cellulose nanofibers from steam-explosion pretreated sugar beet pulp. Materials 2018, 11, 1160.
Lee, J.; Lim, M.; Yoon, J.; Kim, M. S.; Choi, B.; Kim, D. M.; Kim, D. H.; Park, I.; Choi, S. J. Transparent, flexible strain sensor based on a solution-processed carbon nanotube network. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2017, 9, 26279–26285.
Liu, J.; Wang, H. Q.; Antonietti, M. Graphitic carbon nitride “reloaded”: Emerging applications beyond (photo)catalysis. Chem. Soc. Rev. 2016, 45, 2308–2326.
Zhang, H. B.; An, P. F.; Zhou, W.; Guan, B. Y.; Zhang, P.; Dong, J. C.; Lou, X. W. Dynamic traction of lattice-confined platinum atoms into mesoporous carbon matrix for hydrogen evolution reaction. Sci. Adv. 2018, 4, eaao6657.
Zheng, Y.; Jiao, Y.; Zhu, Y. H.; Cai, Q. R.; Vasileff, A.; Li, L. H.; Han, Y.; Chen, Y.; Qiao, S. Z. Molecule-level g-C3N4 coordinated transition metals as a new class of electrocatalysts for oxygen electrode reactions. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2017, 139, 3336–3339.
Li, H. T.; Li, N.; Wang, M.; Zhao, B. P.; Long, F. Synthesis of novel and stable g-C3N4-Bi3Wo6 hybrid nanocomposites and their enhanced photocatalytic activity under visible light irradiation. R. Soc. Open Sci. 2018, 5, 171419.
Xu, J.; Zhang, L. W.; Shi, R.; Zhu, Y. F. Chemical exfoliation of graphitic carbon nitride for efficient heterogeneous photocatalysis. J. Mater. Chem. A 2013, 1, 14766–14772.
Zheng, Y.; Lin, L. H.; Wang, B.; Wang, X. C. Graphitic carbon nitride polymers toward sustainable photoredox catalysis. Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2015, 54, 12868–12884.
Qi, K. Z.; Xie, Y. B.; Wang, R. D.; Liu, S. Y.; Zhao, Z. Electroless plating Ni-P cocatalyst decorated g-C3N4 with enhanced photocatalytic water splitting for H2 generation. Appl. Surf. Sci. 2019, 466, 847–853.
Lai, T. M.; Du, Z. W.; Chen, Y. G Abnormally large and small adhesion forces between plasma-treated silicon surfaces studied on AFM. J. Adhesion 2019, 1–23.
Li, R.; Ren, Y. L.; Zhao, P. X.; Wang, J.; Liu, J. D.; Zhang, Y. T. Graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) nanosheets functionalized composite membrane with self-cleaning and antibacterial performance. J. Hazard. Mater. 2019, 365, 606–614.
Shao, D. D.; Yang, W. J.; Xiao, H. F.; Wang, Z. Y.; Zhou, C.; Cao, X. L.; Sun, S. P. Self-cleaning nanofiltration membranes by coordinated regulation of carbon quantum dots and polydopamine. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2020, 12, 580–590.
Wei, Y. B.; Zhu, Y. X.; Jiang, Y. J. Photocatalytic self-cleaning carbon nitride nanotube intercalated reduced graphene oxide membranes for enhanced water purification. Chem. Eng. J. 2019, 356, 915–925.
Ling, S. J.; Qin, Z.; Huang, W. W.; Cao, S. F.; Kaplan, D. L.; Buehler, M. J. Design and function of biomimetic multilayer water purification membranes. Sci. Adv. 2017, 3, e1601939.
Ling, S. J.; Jin, K.; Kaplan, D. L.; Buehler, M. J. Ultrathin freestanding Bombyx mori silk nanofibril membranes. Nano Lett. 2016, 16, 3795–3800.
Nair, R. R.; Wu, H. A.; Jayaram, P. N.; Grigorieva, I. V.; Geim, A. K. Unimpeded permeation of water through helium-leak-tight graphene-based membranes. Science 2012, 335, 442–444.
Surwade, S. P.; Smirnov, S. N.; Vlassiouk, I. V.; Unocic, R. R.; Veith, G. M.; Dai, S.; Mahurin, S. M. Water desalination using nanoporous single-layer graphene. Nat. Nanotechnol. 2015, 10, 459–464.
Zhou, L.; Tan, Y. L.; Wang, J. Y.; Xu, W. C.; Yuan, Y.; Cai, W. S.; Zhu, S. N.; Zhu, J. 3D self-assembly of aluminium nanoparticles for plasmon-enhanced solar desalination. Nat. Photonics 2016, 10, 393–398.
Wang, Y. J.; Li, L. B.; Wei, Y. Y.; Xue, J.; Chen, H.; Ding, L.; Caro, J.; Wang, H. H. Water transport with ultralow friction through partially exfoliated g-C3N4 nanosheet membranes with self-supporting spacers. Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2017, 56, 8974–8980.
Li, F.; Yu, Z. X.; Shi, H.; Yang, Q. B.; Chen, Q.; Pan, Y.; Zeng, G. Y.; Yan, L. A mussel-inspired method to fabricate reduced graphene oxide/g-C3N4 composites membranes for catalytic decomposition and oil-in-water emulsion separation. Chem. Eng. J. 2017, 322, 33–45.
Liu, Q. X.; Ai, L. H.; Jiang, J. Mxene-derived TiO2@C/g-C3N4 heterojunctions for highly efficient nitrogen photofixation. J. Mater. Chem. A 2018, 6, 4102–4110.
Yan, P. C.; She, X. J.; Zhu, X. W.; Xu, L.; Qian, J. C.; Xia, J. X.; Zhang, J. M.; Xu, H.; Li, H. N.; Li, H. M. Efficient photocatalytic hydrogen evolution by engineering amino groups into ultrathin 2D graphitic carbon nitride. Appl. Surf. Sci. 2020, 507, 145085.
Tian, N.; Huang, H. W.; Du, X.; Dong, F.; Zhang, Y. H. Rational nanostructure design of graphitic carbon nitride for photocatalytic applications. J. Mater. Chem. A 2019, 7, 11584–11612.
Gan, X. R.; Lei, D. Y.; Ye, R. Q.; Zhao, H. M.; Wong, K. Y. Transition metal dichalcogenide-based mixed-dimensional heterostructures for visible-light-driven photocatalysis: Dimensionality and interface engineering. Nano. Res. 2020, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-020-2955-x.
Acknowledgements
This study was financially supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2018YFC1902101), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21908127, 21838006, and 21776159), the project supported by the Foundation (No. KF201810) of Key Laboratory of Pulp and Paper Science and Technology of Ministry of Education/Shandong Province of China and Opening Project of the Key Laboratory of Bionic Engineering (Ministry of Education), Jilin University.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Electronic Supplementary Material
12274_2020_3256_MOESM1_ESM.pdf
High flux photocatalytic self-cleaning nanosheet C3N4 membrane supported by cellulose nanofibers for dye wastewater purification
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zhang, L., Meng, G., Fan, G. et al. High flux photocatalytic self-cleaning nanosheet C3N4 membrane supported by cellulose nanofibers for dye wastewater purification. Nano Res. 14, 2568–2573 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-020-3256-0
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-020-3256-0