An investigation of the biochar-based visible-light photocatalyst via a self-assembly strategy

In order to reduce the cost of commercial visible-light photocatalyst, a self-assembly strategy was deployed in producing a Ti-coupled N-embedded chicken feather biochar based catalyst (TINCs). The TINCs were manufactured by blending Ti-contained cross-link agent with hydrolyzed N-embedded chicken feather. These synthesis materials were well characterized with X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared, Scanning electron microscopy, Transmission electron microscope, Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, Surface area analysis and UV–vis absorption spectra. There were multilayered graphene oxide-like structures observed on TINCs, which were similar to the TiO2-graphene oxide material. Correspondingly, the TINCs had presented a 90.91% degradation rate of Rhodamine B under visible-light after 240 min. The corresponding TOC of the solution had dropped by 56.26%. Every slice of TINCs was constituted by multilayered graphene oxide-like framework, interspersing with TiO2 nanoparticles uniformly. Some mechanisms were also analyzed. The cost analysis investigated that TINCs was promising in industrialization.