Nickel foam supported carbon nitride quantum dots as a sustainable catalyst for efficient electrocatalytic degradation of dyes

In electrocatalytic oxidation of organic dyes, requirement of higher overpotential for conventional electrodes limited its potential, which greatly encourages the look for highly active, energy efficient and stable materials. Herein, we demonstrated nickel foam supported carbon nitride quantum dots (CNQDs@NF) constructed through a simple hydrothermal approach, which could be considered as an energy efficient anode electrode for electrocatalytic process. The constructed 3D porous electrode exhibit a high activity towards the degradation of three hazardous dyes such as crystal violet, Rhodamine-B, and methyl orange. With an optimized oxidation current density of 4.2 mAcm⁻² and low energy consumption, 97 %, 98 %, and 99 % removal of Rhodamine-B, crystal violet, and methyl orange observed within 120 min. Moreover, no activity decay was noticed during 5 h, degradation efficiency remains almost same after 3 consecutive cycles. Further, proposed the mechanism involved in degradation process, demonstrated that, CNQDs@NF anode could create huge amount of hydroxyl radicals, which are contribute for oxidation of pollutants. This suggests that the CNQDs@NF electrodes exhibit both enhanced degradation and energy saving nature.