The demand for modern
organic pollutant treatment has prompted
the development of environmentally acceptable photocatalytic processes.
In this work, we report novel nitrogen and sulfur codoped graphene
quantum dot (S,N-GQD) based photocatalysts and fluorescent ink for
the first time. For the degradation of organic dyes under visible
irradiation, a hydrothermal technique was employed to generate S,N-GQD
green nanomaterials. The synthesized samples were examined using XRD,
HR-TEM, EDX, FT-IR, PL, and UV–vis spectroscopy. UV-DRS was
used to determine the energy band gap of S,N-GQDs, and it was obtained
to be around ∼2.54 eV. To explore the catalytic behavior of
the produced S,N-GQDs as green nanomaterials, organic dyes (i.e.,
crystal violet and Alizarin yellow) have been used as a reference
dye in this study. Using several radical scavenging agents, the photocatalytic
mechanism was examined. This novel photocatalyst offers a promising
alternative for the breakdown of organic pollutants. Moreover, these
S,N-GQDs can also be used as fluorescent ink for imaging purposes
and security reasons.