The photoreduction of CO2 to hydrocarbon products has attracted much attention because it provides an avenue to directly synthesize value‐added carbon‐based fuels and feedstocks using solar energy. Among various photocatalysts, graphitic carbon nitride (g‐C3N4) has emerged as an attractive metal‐free visible‐light photocatalyst due to its advantages of earth‐abundance, nontoxicity, and stability. Unfortunately, its photocatalytic efficiency is seriously limited by charge carriers′ ready recombination and their low reaction dynamics. Modifying the local electronic structure of g‐C3N4 is predicted to be an efficient way to improve the charge transfer and reaction efficiency. Here, boron (B) is doped into the large cavity between adjacent tri‐s‐triazine units via coordination with two‐coordinated N atoms. Theoretical calculations prove that the new electron excitation from N (2px, 2py) to B (2px, 2py) with the same orbital direction in B‐doped g‐C3N4 is much easier than N (2px, 2py) to C 2pz in pure g‐C3N4, and improves the charge transfer and localization, and thus the reaction dynamics. Moreover, B atoms doping changes the adsorption of CO (intermediate), and can act as active sites for CH4 production. As a result, the optimal sample of 1%B/g‐C3N4 exhibits better selectivity for CH4 with ≈32 times higher yield than that of pure g‐C3N4.
Directly using solar energy to realize photocatalytic reduction of CO2to hydrocarbon fuels is an effective tactics to solve the energy crisis and carbon emission. Although graphite carbon nitride (g‐C3N4) has been widely studied as a star photocatalyst for CO2reduction, the extremely fast charge recombination rate seriously limits its performance. Loading suitable co‐catalysts to construct an effective junction is considered an efficient way to solve this issue and promote photocatalytic performance. In this work, metallic molybdenum dioxide (MoO2) is dispersed on g‐C3N4nanosheets to construct a Schottky junction photocatalyst. The Schottky junction between MoO2and g‐C3N4induces efficient charge separation and transfer. As a result, the optimal MoO2/g‐C3N4Schottky junction photocatalyst exhibits a 15 times higher CH4yield and five times higher CO yield compared with pure g‐C3N4. This article provides a new route to construct a Schottky junction for boosting photocatalytic activity.
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