Removal Of Triclosan In Waste Water By Nickel Doped Graphene Oxide Using Photo Electrocatalysis Under Visible Light

Clean environment and ever increasing clean energy demands have compelled to innovative economical and environment friendly solutions which assist in meeting these demands.With sunlight in abundance and an efficient photocatalyst,photoelctrocatalysis techniques can be deployed for producing energy and eliminate pollutants.In this work,we have attempted to fabricate an efficient photoelectrocatalyst and evaluated its performance to eliminate a pollutant.Nickel-Graphene Oxide composite was fabricated,wherein we attempted to load Nickel nanoparticles on Graphene oxide sheets.Electrodeposition technique was deployed to coat this Nickel-Graphene composite onto substrates like copper,nickel foam and FTO.Solvent exfoliation and chemical reduction were used to fabricate Graphene oxide from graphite oxide.The so formed graphene oxide was used as substrate to load Nickel nanoparticles.Characterization of reduced graphene oxide,exfoliated graphene oxide,reduced Ni-GO composite and exfoliated Ni-GO was conducted using SEM and XPS.The results indicate that Nickel crystals were deposited on both the composites.Nickel crystals deposition is enhanced in the solvent exfoliated composite implicating better deposition of Nickel by exfoliation.The Ni-GO composite loaded electrodes were evaluated under PEC conditions to degrade Triclosan under visible light conditions.Amongst the tested substrates,Copper exhibited the highest PEC activity for degrading Triclosan.The electrodes were evaluated for Triclosan degradation under Photochemical and electrochemical systems in comparison with photoelectrochemical system.The effect of pH,varying potential current,concentrations and trapping agents' types on the degradation of Triclosan were systematically evaluated.The PEC reaction rate of Triclosan increased with increasing applied current.Better efficiencies of Triclosan degradation were achieved at near neutral solution.The photogenerated holes and hydroxyl radicals were considered as main active species by adding different trapping agents.The composite displayed good stability and activity under multiple cyclic runs.