Renewable biomass derived porous BCN nanosheets and their adsorption and photocatalytic activities for the decontamination of organic pollutants

In this work, the preparation, characterization and removal capabilities of a novel biomass derived BC and its BCN nanocomposites are described. Possessing hierarchically porous structures, extremely large surface areas and special chemical bonds, porous BCN nanosheets have demonstrated advantages in terms of their adsorption and photocatalytic activities. The adsorption and photocatalytic activities of the as-prepared catalysts were evaluated by the degradation of RhB. The best results exhibited 97% and 95% decomposition of RhB which were obtained by using porous BCN-40 nanosheets within 120 min at 25 °C under UV light and visible light (>420 nm) irradiation respectively. The rate constant of the porous BCN-40 nanosheets for the degradation of RhB was more 16 times than that of pure h-BN. Besides, the porous BCN nanosheets showed remarkable cycling stability, maintaining a high photocatalytic activity up to 94% after 5 cycles. Furthermore, the degradation mechanisms of RhB and the photocatalytic mechanism have been explained in this paper.