Vacancy-Modified Porous g-C₃N₄ Nanosheets Controlled by Physical Activation for Highly Efficient Visible-Light-Driven...

As a promising photocatalyst material, g-C₃N₄ has great application potential in energy production and environmental improvement. In this work, surface-modified g-C₃N₄ nanosheets with excellent stability and high photocatalytic activity were successfully synthesized by physical steam activation. The charge transfer rate of carbon nitride was improved due to the synergistic effect of nitrogen defect and oxygen doping caused by steam activation. Meanwhile, the specific surface area and pore volume of the optimized sample reached 124.3 m² g^-1 and 0.42 cm³ g^-1, respectively, which increased the exposed reaction sites of reactants, enhancing the photocatalytic activity of g-C₃N₄. In addition, this novel g-C₃N₄ displayed a great H₂ evolution rate of 5889.39 μmol h^-1 g^-1 with a methylene blue degradation rate up to 6.52 10^-3 min^-1, which was 3.7 and 2.1 times of original g-C₃N₄, respectively. This study provided a simple and economical method to develop a highly efficient g-C₃N₄ photocatalyst for solar energy conversion.