Publication

Abstract : Hexavalent chromium is an important inorganic industrial effluent in the water that causes serious health problems to the mankind. Photocatalytic reduction of Cr(VI) is a green technology that converts the toxic Cr(VI) to non-toxic Cr(III). In the photocatalytic reduction of Cr(VI), transition metal oxide semiconductors are mainly used as photocatalysts. This infers, for the removal of a transition metal i.e. Cr(VI), another transition metal is added in the form of photocatalyst. Hence, we explore a non-metallic, elemental photocatalyst fibrous red phosphorus (FRP), a crystalline allotrope of red phosphorus as photocatalyst for Cr(VI) reduction. FRP exhibits excellent photocatalytic activity towards Cr(VI) reduction under direct sunlight and we observed complete reduction of Cr(VI) (25 mg/L) within 40 min at pH-2.