Piezo-Flexocatalysis of Single-Atom Pt-Loaded Graphitic Carbon Nitride

This study develops a single-atom Pt-loaded graphitic carbon nitride (SA-Pt/CN) and evaluates its piezo-flexocatalytic properties by conducting a hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and Rhodamine B (RB) dye degradation test under ultrasonic vibration in the dark. SA-Pt/CN has a hydrogen gas yield of 1283.8 µmol g^-1 h^-1, which is 23.3 times higher than that of pristine g-C₃N₄. Moreover, SA-Pt/CN enhances the dye degradation reaction rate by ≈2.3 times compared with the pristine sample. SA-Pt/CN exhibits lattice distortion and strain gradient enlargement caused by the single atom Pt at the N sites of g-C₃N₄, which disrupts the symmetric structure and contributes to the enhancement of piezoelectric and flexoelectric polarization. As far as it is known, this is the first study to investigate the piezo-flexocatalytic reaction of SA-Pt/CN without light irradiation and provides new insights into single-atom piezocatalysts.