Carbon dots prepared from waste wood and residual adhesive and their use as catalysts for hydrogen production

Abstract

Large quantities of waste wood with residual resin adhesives are not recycled efficiently. To address this issue, waste wood with residual resin adhesives was synthesized into carbon dots (CDs) via a facile hydrothermal self-assembly method to enhance the H2 evolution performance of graphite C3N4 (g-C3N4), a metal-free photocatalyst. Among all samples, the most significant enhanced sample was MCN-UF-3.5, which has an H2 evolution of 22.1 mmol·g-1·h-1, which is 3.91 times that of unmodified g-C3N4. The band gap and recombination of photogenerated charges were both improved by the doping of CDs. Meanwhile, the DFT calculation showed that adding CDs, especially with the -NH2 group, can significantly deform the structure and destroy the symmetry. This consequence implies an enhancement in the activity of the hydrogen evolution reaction, confirming the feasibility of the modification.