Clay-based 1D-2D halloysite&g-C₃N₄ nanostructured meat floss for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution

Graphitic carbon nitride (g-C₃N₄) has drawn extensive attention with some features including visible-light response as non-metallic semiconductor, low cost in raw material and green pollution-free for environment, but suffers from some issues such as fast charge carriers' recombination, easy aggregation, etc. In this work, the 1D-2D HNTs&g-C₃N₄-X binary materials similar to meat floss pattern in a series of halloysite loading amounts are designed via a facile electrostatic self-assembly strategy with debris g-C₃N₄ after cell pulverizing treatment and HNTs that outwardly modified by cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) as the building blocks. The halloysite-mediated satellite-core material displays a photocatalytic of H₂ evolution performance with the highest evolution rate of 137.0 μmol g^-1 h^-1 in visible light condition with no co-catalysts, and is ∼3.4 times that of bulk g-C₃N₄, mainly benefiting from the reduced nanometer size of debris g-C₃N₄ and enhanced interface dispersion ability by HNTs, resulting in ameliorative separation efficiency of photogenerated charge carriers. This research conclusively provides the new perspective towards the performance enhancement of water splitting of g-C₃N₄ in raw clay mineral modification mode and broadens the applications of mineral-based composite in the renewable energy utilization field.