In situ reduction and exfoliation of g-C3N4 nanosheets with copious active sites via a thermal approach for effective water splitting
- Authors
- Pawar, Rajendra C.; Kang, Suhee; Han, Hyuksu; Choi, Heechae; Lee, Sunyong Caroline
- Issue Date
- Feb-2019
- Publisher
- Royal Society of Chemistry
- Citation
- Catalysis Science and Technology, v.9, no.4, pp.1004 - 1012
- Indexed
- SCIE
SCOPUS
- Journal Title
- Catalysis Science and Technology
- Volume
- 9
- Number
- 4
- Start Page
- 1004
- End Page
- 1012
- URI
- https://scholarworks.bwise.kr/erica/handle/2021.sw.erica/3478
- DOI
- 10.1039/c8cy02318b
- ISSN
- 2044-4753
- Abstract
- Poor optical absorbance and charge recombination are the major drawbacks of polymeric graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4)-based photocatalysts. In this paper, we show for the first time a single-step in situ technique to control the porosity of two-dimensional g-C3N4 sheets and exfoliate them by introducing ascorbic acid (AA) molecules. The AA simultaneously acts as the carbon (C) source and deposits amorphous C onto g-C3N4 sheets. Nanosized pores are also introduced into the g-C3N4 sheets, leading to a large number of active sites. The as-prepared C-doped porous g-C3N4 nanosheets demonstrate a high visible light-photocatalytic H-2 production activity of 793 mol g(-1) with the optimum structure, which is almost 25 times higher than the value obtained with bulk g-C3N4 (31 mol g(-1)). This exceptional photocatalytic performance arises from the C-doped conjugated system and porous nanosheets. The enhanced photocatalytic H-2 evolution was attributed to the effective separation and transport of charge carriers by the deposition of C onto the nanosheets and an increased number of active sites resulting from the nanopores created inside the g-C3N4 sheets. Moreover, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations confirm that the interaction between AA and melamine molecules at elevated temperatures results in the formation of C-doped porous and exfoliated g-C3N4 structures. Therefore, the present approach is very promising for application to the design of new and efficient photocatalysts for photocatalytic H-2 evolution under visible irradiation.
- Files in This Item
-
Go to Link
- Appears in
Collections - COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING SCIENCES > DEPARTMENT OF MATERIALS SCIENCE AND CHEMICAL ENGINEERING > 1. Journal Articles
Items in ScholarWorks are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.