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Published on: December 6, 2021
Defective Carbon Nitride with Dual-surface Engineering for Highly Efficient Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution under
Ming Wu1, Libo Chen1, Xin Luo2
1Key Laboratory of Theoretical Organic Chemistry and Functional Molecules, Ministry of Education, Functional Film Materials Engineering Research Center of Hunan Province, Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials for New Energy Storage and Conversion, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hunan University of Science and Technology, Xiangtan 411201, China.
Engineered defective carbon nitride (DCN-x) exhibits enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen evolution. This porous material shows 55.9 times greater activity than pure carbon nitride (CN) due to improved light absorption and reduced electron-hole recombination.
Area of Science:
- Materials Science
- Photocatalysis
- Renewable Energy
Background:
- Graphite carbon nitride (CN) is a promising material for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution.
- Improving the efficiency and stability of CN-based photocatalysts remains a key challenge.
- Defect engineering offers a pathway to enhance the electronic and structural properties of CN.
Purpose of the Study:
- To synthesize and characterize defective carbon nitride (DCN-x) materials.
- To investigate the effect of dual-surface engineering on the photocatalytic performance of CN.
- To understand the structure-property relationships governing enhanced hydrogen evolution.
Main Methods:
- Defective carbon nitride (DCN-x) synthesized via nitric acid treatment and high-temperature calcination.
- Characterization of porous structure, surface area, and optical properties.
- Evaluation of photocatalytic hydrogen evolution activity and stability under visible light irradiation.
Main Results:
- DCN-x exhibited a porous structure and significantly larger surface area compared to pure CN.
- Enhanced visible light absorption and reduced electron-hole recombination rates were observed in DCN-x.
- The optimum sample, DCN-600, showed a 55.9-fold increase in photocatalytic hydrogen evolution activity over pure CN, with excellent stability.
Conclusions:
- Dual-surface engineering effectively creates defective carbon nitride with superior photocatalytic hydrogen evolution performance.
- The tri-s-triazine (heptazine) structure is crucial for band gap optimization in carbon nitride materials.
- This study provides insights for designing advanced carbon nitride photocatalysts for sustainable hydrogen production.
