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Electron-beam induced durable immobilization of g-C3N4 onto cotton fabric for visible-light photocatalytic purification

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Abstract

The development of immobilized photocatalysts on flexible materials is an attractive method for addressing catalyst recovery and agglomeration problems in water purification. Herein, a durable immobilization strategy was developed to fabricate photocatalytic cotton fabrics with graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) by cross-linking solid N,N′-methylene bisacrylamide (MBA) via electron beam (EB) irradiation. The g-C3N4 was anchored onto the cotton by MBA through cross-linked network, code as g-C3N4-Cot. The g-C3N4-Cot exhibited excellent photocatalytic degradation activity for ofloxacin (OFX) after 60 accelerated laundering cycles. At the same time, the coated g-C3N4 and cross-linked MBA could protect the surface of cotton cellulose from the destruction of radicals. Even after 60 min of ultrasonic treatment, the mass fraction of g-C3N4 leached from g-C3N4-Cot-1 was only 5 wt%. The immobilized g-C3N4 photocatalytic coating can be also applicable for the degradation of other typical organic contaminants. Furthermore, the ·O2− species played critical role during the degradation process. Hence, EB cross-linking provides an alternative method for constructing efficient and stable photocatalytic materials, which have great potential for application in wastewater purification.

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Acknowledgments

We greatly appreciate supports from Science Challenge Project, No. TZ2018004, the Sino-Swiss Science and Technology Cooperation program with ETH Zurich, State Key Laboratory of NBC Protection for Civilian and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 21976089, 11305243).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 2019 Jialuo Road, Jiading District, Shanghai, 201800, People’s Republic of China

    Zhi Xiong, Yulong Li, Mingxing Zhang, Xuanzhi Mao, Rongfang Shen, Jiangtao Hu, Minglei Wang & Guozhong Wu

  2. School of Environmental and Biological Engineering, Jiangsu Province, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, 200 Xiaolingwei, Nanjing, 210094, People’s Republic of China

    Zhi Xiong & Yulong Li

  3. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Central South University of Forestry and Technology, Changsha, 410004, People’s Republic of China

    Qianhong Gao

  4. School of Physical Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai, 200031, People’s Republic of China

    Guozhong Wu

  5. Institute of Environmental Engineering, ETH Zürich, 8093, Zurich, Switzerland

    Minglei Wang

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  1. Zhi Xiong
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Xiong, Z., Li, Y., Zhang, M. et al. Electron-beam induced durable immobilization of g-C3N4 onto cotton fabric for visible-light photocatalytic purification. Cellulose 30, 3339–3350 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-022-04952-5

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