Ultra-thin nanosheet assemblies of graphitic carbon nitride for enhanced photocatalytic CO2 reduction

A two-dimensional layered polymeric photocatalyst, graphitic carbon nitride (g-C 3 N 4 ), is becoming the rising star in the field of solar-to-fuel conversion. However, the performance of commonly prepared g-C 3 N 4 is usually very weak because of the high recombination rate of photogenerated charge...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of materials chemistry. A, Materials for energy and sustainability Materials for energy and sustainability, 2017, Vol.5 (7), p.323-3238
Main Authors: Xia, Pengfei, Zhu, Bicheng, Yu, Jiaguo, Cao, Shaowen, Jaroniec, Mietek
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Carbon dioxide
Charge carriers
Nanostructure
Photocatalysis
Photocatalysts
Reduction
Surface chemistry
Texture
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Summary:A two-dimensional layered polymeric photocatalyst, graphitic carbon nitride (g-C 3 N 4 ), is becoming the rising star in the field of solar-to-fuel conversion. However, the performance of commonly prepared g-C 3 N 4 is usually very weak because of the high recombination rate of photogenerated charge carriers and a small amount of surface active sites. Here we demonstrate simultaneous texture modification and surface functionalization of g-C 3 N 4 via a stepwise NH 3 -mediated thermal exfoliation approach. The resulting g-C 3 N 4 photocatalyst possesses a hierarchical structure obtained by the assembly of amine-functionalized ultrathin nanosheets and thus exhibits remarkably enhanced light harvesting, a high redox ability of charge carriers, increased CO 2 adsorption and a larger amount of surface active sites, as well as improved charge carrier transfer and separation. Therefore the aforementioned hierarchical g-C 3 N 4 consisting of amine-functionalized ultra-thin nanosheets shows much better performance for photocatalytic CO 2 reduction than unmodified conventional g-C 3 N 4 photocatalysts. This work demonstrates the development of hierarchical ultra-thin g-C 3 N 4 nanosheets with enhanced photocatalytic CO 2 reduction activity.
ISSN:2050-7488
2050-7496
DOI:10.1039/c6ta08310b