Salt-assisted synthesis of 3D open porous g-C3N4 decorated with cyano groups for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution
By Zhangfa Chen, Shangchen Lu, Qianling Wu, Fang He, Naiqin Zhao, Chunnian He and Chunsheng Shi
Published in Nanoscale
2018
Abstract
fabricated by a facile two-step process that combines NaCl-assisted freeze-drying with calcination. NaCl not only works as a template for the 3D open porous structure, but also facilitates the decomposition of g-C3N4 around 500 °C to some extent. Meanwhile, a moderate amount of cyano groups acting as electron capture centers are introduced at the edge of the 3D open porous g-C3N4 during the formation process. Compared with bulk g-C3N4 without NaCl assistance, the 3D OPG-C3N4-CN exhibits improved light absorption, reduced carrier recombination and more active sites. As a result, the enhanced hydrogen production of 3D OPG-C3N4-CN reaches up to 1590 μmol h−1 g−1 when using Pt as a cocatalyst, which is about six times as much as that of the bulk g-C3N4.