Carbon Nitride Supramolecular Hybrid Material Enabled High-Efficiency Photocatalytic Water Treatments

Surface defects in relation to surface compositions, morphology, and active sites play crucial roles in photocatalytic activity of graphitic carbon nitride (g-C₃N₄) material for highly reactive oxygen radicals production. Here, we report a high-efficiency carbon nitride supramolecular hybrid material prepared by patching the surface defects with inorganic clusters. Fe (III) {PO₄[WO(O₂)₂]₄} clusters have been noncovalently integrated on surface of g-C₃N₄, where the surface defects provide accommodation sites for these clusters and driving forces for self-assembly. During photocatalytic process, the activity of supramolecular hybrid is 1.53 times than pure g-C₃N₄ for the degradation of Rhodamine B (RhB) and 2.26 times for Methyl Orange (MO) under the simulated solar light. Under the mediation of H₂O₂ (50 mmol L^-1), the activity increases to 6.52 times for RhB and 28.3 times for MO. The solid cluster active sites with high specific surface area (SSA) defect surface promoting the kinetics of hydroxide radicals production give rise to the extremely high photocatalytic activity. It exhibits recyclable capability and works in large-scale demonstration under the natural sunlight as well and interestingly the environmental temperature has little effects on the photocatalytic activity.