Modification of carbon nitride based polymeric 2D materials for tailoring their optical, electronic and chemical properties for various applications has gained significant interest. The present report demonstrates the synthesis of a novel modified carbon nitride framework with a remarkable 3:5 C:N stoichiometry (C3N5) and an electronic bandgap of 1.76 eV, by thermal deammoniation of the melem hydrazine precursor. Characterization revealed that in the C3N5 polymer, two s-heptazine units are bridged together with azo linkage, which constitutes an entirely new and different bonding fashion from g-C3N4 where three heptazine units are linked together with tertiary nitrogen. Extended conjugation due to overlap of azo nitrogens and increased electron density on heptazine nucleus due to the aromatic π network of heptazine units lead to an upward shift of the valence band maximum resulting in bandgap reduction down to 1.76 eV. XRD, He-ion imaging, HR-TEM, EELS, PL, fluorescence lifetime imaging, Raman, FTIR, TGA, KPFM, XPS, NMR and EPR clearly show that the properties of C3N5 are distinct from pristine carbon nitride (g-C3N4). When used as an electron transport layer (ETL) in MAPbBr3 based halide perovskite solar cells, C3N5 outperformed g-C3N4, in particular generating an open circuit photovoltage as high as 1.3 V, while C3N5 blended with MA x FA1–x Pb­(I0.85Br0.15)3 perovskite active layer achieved a photoconversion efficiency (PCE) up to 16.7%. C3N5 was also shown to be an effective visible light sensitizer for TiO2 photoanodes in photoelectrochemical water splitting. Because of its electron-rich character, the C3N5 material displayed instantaneous adsorption of methylene blue from aqueous solution reaching complete equilibrium within 10 min, which is significantly faster than pristine g-C3N4 and other carbon based materials. C3N5 coupled with plasmonic silver nanocubes promotes plasmon-exciton coinduced surface catalytic reactions reaching completion at much low laser intensity (1.0 mW) than g-C3N4, which showed sluggish performance even at high laser power (10.0 mW). The relatively narrow bandgap and 2D structure of C3N5 make it an interesting air-stable and temperature-resistant semiconductor for optoelectronic applications while its electron-rich character and intrasheet cavity make it an attractive supramolecular adsorbent for environmental applications.

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is a well-known photocatalyst for the photocatalytic transformation of CO 2 into methane. The formation of C 2+ products such as ethane and ethanol rather than methane is more interesting due to their higher energy density and economic value, but the formation of C−C bonds is currently a major challenge in CO 2 photoreduction. In this context, we report the dominant formation of a C 2 product, namely, ethane, from the gas-phase photoreduction of CO 2 using TiO 2 nanotube arrays (TNTAs) decorated with large-sized (80−200 nm) Ag and Cu nanoparticles without the use of a sacrificial agent or hole scavenger. Isotope-labeled mass spectrometry was used to verify the origin and identity of the reaction products. Under 2 h AM1.5G 1-sun illumination, the total rate of hydrocarbon production (methane + ethane) was highest for AgCu-TNTA with a total C x H 2x+2 rate of 23.88 μmol g −1 h −1 . Under identical conditions, the C x H 2x+2 production rates for Ag-TNTA and Cu-TNTA were 6.54 and 1.39 μmol g −1 h −1 , respectively. The ethane selectivity was the highest for AgCu-TNTA with 60.7%, while the ethane selectivity was found to be 15.9 and 10% for the Ag-TNTA and Cu-TNTA, respectively. Adjacent adsorption sites in our photocatalyst develop an asymmetric charge distribution due to quadrupole resonances in large metal nanoparticles and multipole resonances in Ag−Cu heterodimers. Such an asymmetric charge distribution decreases adsorbate−adsorbate repulsion and facilitates C−C coupling of reaction intermediates, which otherwise occurs poorly in TNTAs decorated with small metal nanoparticles.