Photo-induced CO2 cycloaddition and tetracycline degradation over novel FeOx modified defective graphitic carbon nitride composite

Utilizing sunlight to achieve CO 2 conversion and environmental remediation has been a key focus. Herein, “all-in-one” graphitic carbon nitride (g-C 3 N 4 ) composite-based photocatalysts were synthesized by a simple one-step low-temperature calcination . Lower calcination temperature resulted in defective g-C 3 N 4 enriched in cyano and hydroxyl groups . It was found that by incorporating amorphous FeO X , the resulted FeO X /O-g-C 3 N 4 photocatalyst shows very good performance towards both CO 2 cycloaddition reaction and photo-Fenton degradation of tetracycline (TC). It was also found that the photocatalyst shows the highest styrene carbonate yield of 83% (23 mmol g −1 h −1 ) under ambient conditions, which is 13.8 times higher than that obtained over pure g-C 3 N 4 . The photocatalyst also exhibits a 4.7 times faster TC removal rate than that of pure g-C 3 N 4 . Systematic characterization and mechanism study demonstrate the role of defects and photo-induced charge carriers.