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Graphitic carbon nitride is one of the most studied photocatalysts for environmental applications as well as for the production of hydrogen. Its band gap at 2.7 eV means that the photocatalytic activity of this material can be activated with the light of wavelength 460 nm and lower. Thermal polycondensation of suitable precursors, for example melamine, is a widely adopted method of bulk g-C3N4 synthesis. As prepared, bulk g-C3N4 suffers from low photodegradation activity, mainly associated with low specific surface area and high rate of electron-hole recombination. G-C3N4, similarly to graphite, has a layered structure and to increase the specific surface area, the thermal, chemical, and mechanical exfoliation methods of its layers are adopted. In this work, the effect of holding time at 525 °C during g-C3N4 exfoliation on its photodegradation activity against rhodamine B under irradiation with light of wavelength 420 nm is reported. The effect of holding time on the specific surface area, the structure of the resulted products, the band gap energies, and particle size was also studied. The highest value of specific surface area was achieved for sample exfoliated for 120 min, the highest photodegradation activity was achieved for sample exfoliated for 90 min.
Keywords: Photocatalysis, g-C3N4, exfoliation, characterization© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.