Malays. J. Anal. Sci. Volume 29 Number 1 (2025): 953

 

Research Article

 

Preparation and characterization of WO3/g-C3N4 composite for photodegradation of 4-hydroxybenzoquinone under low UV-light intensity

 

Nik Fatin Nabihah Atiqah Nik Ramli1, Hamizah Mokhtar1*, Zul Adlan Mohd Hir2,3*, and Hartini Ahmad Rafaie4

 

1Civil Engineering Studies, College of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi MARA Pahang Branch, 26400 Bandar Tun Abdul Razak Jengka, Pahang, Malaysia

2Faculty of Applied Sciences, Universiti Teknologi MARA Cawangan Pahang Branch, 26400 Bandar Tun Abdul Razak Jengka, Pahang, Malaysia

3Catalysis for Sustainable Water and Energy Nexus Research Group, School of Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi MARA, 40450 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia

4Centre of Foundation Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Selangor Branch, Dengkil Campus, 43800 Dengkil, Selangor, Malaysia

 

*Corresponding author: hamizah1161@uitm.edu.my, zuladlan@uitm.edu.my  

 

Received: 14 September 2023; Revised: 30 August 2024; Accepted: 18 November 2024; Published: 1 February 2025

 

Abstract

Organic ultraviolet (UV) filter is considered as an emerging contaminant through their detection in many aquatic environments. The presence of organic UV filters tends to give high risks towards the human endocrine and environmental ecological systems under long exposure. The existing wastewater treatment approaches such as coagulation, filtration, and adsorption are unable to remove completely this type of contaminant from the water bodies due to the difficulties in breaking down the chemical structures. However, heterogeneous photocatalytic system has been chosen as the most promising approach to combat such contaminants which relies on the presence of reactive radical species and can be operated at room temperature and pressure. The current work focused on the preparation and characterization of WO3/g-C3N4 composite photocatalysts and evaluation of its photocatalytic activity towards 4-Hydroxybenzoquinone (4-HBQ) under low intensity UV-C irradiation (9 W). The composite photocatalyst was prepared via facile mixing approach, by varying the mass ratio of g-C3N4 ranging from 0.1 g to 0.5 g. The photocatalyst was successfully characterized by using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) and X-Ray diffraction (XRD) analyses. The highest degradation percentage of 79.58% is obtained through WG3 composite photocatalyst with pseudo-first-order rate constant-C3N4 of 0.0077 min-1. Furthermore, WG3 shows the best performance, which is stabled for a course of 180 min. This study showed that the composite photocatalyst has the high potential for application in larger wastewater treatment processes.

 

Keywords: g-C3N4; 4-Hydroxybenzoquinone; Photocatalyst; Water Treatment; WO3

 

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