Porous carbon nitride nanosheets for enhanced photocatalytic activities

Porous carbon nitride nanosheets (PCNs) have been prepared for the first time by a simple liquid exfoliation method via probe sonication. These mesoporous nanosheets of around 5 nm in thickness combine several advantages including high surface area, enhanced light absorption and excellent water dispersity. It can be used as a versatile support for co-catalyst loading for photocatalytic dye degradation and water reduction. With 3.8 wt% Co(3)O(4) loaded, PCNs can achieve more efficient photocatalytic degradation of Rhodamine B, compared with non-porous C(3)N(4) nanosheets (CNs), bulk porous C(3)N(4) (PCN) and bulk nonporous C(3)N(4) (CN). With 1.0 wt% Pt loaded, CNs and PCN exhibit 7-8 times enhancement in H2 evolution than CN. Remarkably, PCNs with both porous and nanosheet-like features achieve 26 times higher activity in H2 evolution than CN. These significant improvements in photocatalytic activities can be attributed to the high surface area as well as better electron mobility of the two-dimensional nanostructure.