Paracetamol (PC), a pharmaceutical widely used in medical fields, is often discharged into water, causing harm to human health. Thus, it is imperative to develop photocatalysts which can efficiently remove PC from the wastewater. Graphitic carbon nitride (GCN) constitutes an important class of photocatalysts in the area of energy and environmental pollution control. Herein, we present a cobalt doped GCN (Co/GCN) to enhance the photodegradation of PC in the wastewater. Co/GCN significantly improved the separation of electrons and holes, narrowed band gap energy, and broadened the absorption of light. Even at high PC initial concentration, the Co/GCN exhibited a PC removal efficiency of 82.6% upon exposure to sunlight for 60 min, which is 1.7 time higher than that of undoped GCN. At low initial concentration of ≤1 mg/L, the Co/GCN was capable of decomposing PC with highest degradation efficiency reaching almost 100%. The kinetic result showed that the Co/GCN achieved the photodegradation rate 3.7 times higher than that of GCN. Furthermore, the Co/GCN can be recycled multiple times, indicating its potential use as photocatalyst for the treatment of pharmaceutical in wastewater.

扑热息痛（PC）是一种广泛用于医疗领域的药物，经常排放到水中，对人体健康造成危害。因此，迫切需要开发能够有效地从废水中去除PC的光催化剂。在能源和环境污染控制领域，石墨碳氮化物（GCN）构成了一类重要的光催化剂。在这里，我们提出了钴掺杂的GCN（Co / GCN），以增强废水中PC的光降解。Co / GCN显着改善了电子与空穴的分离，缩小了带隙能，并扩大了光的吸收。即使在较高的PC初始浓度下，Co / GCN在暴露于阳光下60分钟后仍具有82.6％的PC去除效率，这是未掺杂GCN的1.7倍。在≤1mg / L的低初始浓度下，Co / GCN能够分解PC，降解效率最高，几乎达到100％。动力学结果表明，Co / GCN的光降解速率是GCN的3.7倍。此外，Co / GCN可以多次循环使用，这表明它有可能用作光催化剂来处理废水中的药物。