Carbon based cobalt titanate perovskite nanocomposite: Synthesis, characterization, and excellent visible light driven photocatalytic performance

Titanium -based perovskite oxides are the promising photocatalysts for an efficient degradation of organic pollutants. However, charge carriers recombination and wide band gap energy are still the main challenges in their visible -light -driven photocatalytic applications of Titanate perovskites, ATiO 3 . The immobilization of Titaniumbased perovskites on a carbonaceous substrate such as nitrogen -rich carbon nitride, can be considered as an excellent option for enhancing photocatalytic performance. Here, the CoTiO 3 /C 3 N 5 nanocomposite was synthesized by simple reflux method and used for photocatalytic degradation of three organic pollutants including methylene blue (MB), tetracycline hydrochloride (TC), and bisphenol A (BPA). The results indicated that the photocatalytic activity of the CoTiO 3 perovskite was considerably improved by introducing C 3 N 5 nanosheets and fabricating CoTP/C 3 N 5 nanocomposite. The crystalline structure of CoTiO 3 /C 3 N 5 (CoTP/C 3 N 5 ) nanocomposites was confirmed successfully by XRD analysis. The specific surface area of the synthesized CoTP/C 3 N 5 nanocomposite was 8.15 m 2 /g calculated by N 2 adsorption - desorption technology. In the 60th minute of the photocatalytic process, the degradation efficiency of MB, TC, and BPA by CoTP/C 3 N 5 were obtained as 98.70, 60.33, and 92.90 %, respectively, which were higher than pristine CoTiO 3 nanorods and C 3 N 5 nanosheets. Electrochemical impedance analysis shows that the CoTP/C 3 N 5 nanocomposite has good electrochemical performance. The improvement photocatalytic activity CoTP/C 3 N 5 can be attributed to the suppressing the recombination of photogenerated electrons and holes and good electrochemical performance with high electron transfer capability. The results achieved from UV - Visible Diffused Reflectance Spectroscopy (DRS), mott-schottky measurements and the photocatalytic degradation experiments in the presence of scavengers confirmed the significantly accelerating the Z -scheme charge transfer mechanism where photoexcited carriers can migrate between CoTiO 3 perovskite and C 3 N 5 nanosheets.