Boosting Degradation of Synthetic Dye and Pesticide Residues in Water Using NCDs/FeNH₂BDC Photocatalysts

The presence of contaminants, such as synthetic dyes and herbicides, in water has led to serious environmental and human health problems worldwide. Therefore, the effective removal of pollutants from aquatic environments has attracted considerable attention. The combination of metal-organic frameworks and advanced carbon materials has attracted great attention in many application fields because the hybrid material has many positive properties from both components. In this paper, NCDs/FeNH₂BDC composite was fabricated through in situ synthesis, in which N-containing carbon dots (NCDs) were mixed with MOF precursor solution in different ratios before undergoing the cooling step. It has been demonstrated that introducing a certain amount of N-containing carbon dots affects the characteristic features and improves the photocatalytic performance of the final product. The optimal doping content of N-containing carbon dots in the NCD/FeNH₂BDC composite was determined to be 400 mg. SEM images show that S400 appears as hexagonal micro-axial crystals with an average size of 500 nm. In addition, the S400 catalyst also exhibits excellent photocatalytic activity for the degradation of Rhodamine B at a pH range of 3 to 5. Under optimal conditions, Rhodamine B is achieved within 60 min and the yield Removal reached nearly 100% after 5 cycles. Finally, the efficiency of S400 in treating the active ingredient pretilachlor in pesticides in water is up to 93.08%.