Carbon Nitride in Energy Conversion and Storage: Recent Advances and Future Prospects

Abstract

With the explosive growth of energy consumption, the exploration of highly efficient energy conversion and storage devices becomes increasingly important. Fuel cells, supercapacitors, and lithium-ion batteries are among the most promising options. The innovation of these devices mainly resides in the development of high-performance electrode materials and catalysts. Graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3 N4 ), due to structural and chemical properties such as semiconductor optical properties, rich nitrogen content, and tunable porous structure, has drawn considerable attention and shown great potential as an electrode material or catalyst in energy conversion and storage devices. This review covers recent progress in g-C3 N4 -containing systems for fuel cells, electrocatalytic water splitting devices, supercapacitors, and lithium-ion batteries. The corresponding catalytic mechanisms and future research directions in these areas are also discussed.

g-C3N4-promoted degradation of ofloxacin antibiotic in natural waters under simulated sunlight

“…Most of the recent studies found in the literature on g-C 3 N 4 refer to the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution promoted by this compound which confirmed that a polymeric g-C 3 N 4 photocatalyst is considered as a viable alternative to the actually known materials for hydrogen production under visible light irradiation (Cao et al 2015;Gong et al 2015;Ye et al 2015). Another interesting and very active area of investigation is the use of g-C 3 N 4 in the photocatalytic removal of test dyes, such as methyl orange (MO) (Han et al 2014;Tahir et al 2013;Yan et al 2009), rhodamine B (RhB) (Bu et al 2014;Chai et al 2014;Wang et al 2014), and methylene blue (MB) (Bai et al 2014;Li et al 2014;Zhu et al 2014).…”

“…+1.6 eV vs normal hydrogen electrode (NHE) ) which makes g-C 3 N 4 highly attractive for a range of reactions. In addition, it is stable up to high temperatures (up to 600°C in air), it can be easily prepared starting from cheap precursors, it is stable in several organic solvents, and it has a high resistance to chemical degradation both in acidic and alkaline environments (Cao et al 2015;Gong et al 2015;Ye et al 2015). Usually, g-C 3 N 4 is prepared by a simple thermal condensation of a nitrogen-rich precursor such as cyanamide ), dicyandiamide (Ji et al 2013), melamine (Yan et al 2009), thiourea (Zhang et al 2012), and urea (Dong et al 2013).…”

“…Usually, g-C 3 N 4 is prepared by a simple thermal condensation of a nitrogen-rich precursor such as cyanamide ), dicyandiamide (Ji et al 2013), melamine (Yan et al 2009), thiourea (Zhang et al 2012), and urea (Dong et al 2013). For comprehensive recent reviews on g-C 3 N 4 , the reader is referred to Cao et al (2015), Gong et al (2015), Ye et al (2015), and references therein.…”

A review on g-C3N4 for photocatalytic water splitting and CO2 reduction

“…Recently, polymeric g-C 3 N 4 has become a focus of attention for photocatalytic reactions [14][15][16][17][18][19]. g-C 3 N 4 is a visible-light-response material ( 2.7 eV bandgap), and the energy position of CB and VB is at -1.1 and 1.6 eV vs normal hydrogen electrode (NHE), respectively [14].…”

Smart Hybrids of Zn2GeO4 Nanoparticles and Ultrathin g‐C3N4 Layers: Synergistic Lithium Storage and Excellent Electrochemical Performance

“…[ 25 ] Opportunely, the natural structure of graphitic carbon nitride (g-C 3 N 4 ) contains large amount of pyrrolic N "hole" defect in the lattice and doubly bonded nitrogen at the edges of the vacancy, which are benefi cial for the adsorption and diffusion of lithium ion; [26][27][28][29] meanwhile, g-C 3 N 4 is inexpensive and nontoxic, and can be rapidly synthesized by the facile and scalable heating method, [ 30,31 ] avoiding the tedious pretreatment, multisteps, large quantities of toxic oxidants or reductants which are necessary for graphene preparation. On wileyonlinelibrary.com © 2015 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim the other hand, in order to adequately expose pyrrolic N "hole" defect of g-C 3 N 4 for lithium storage, it is suitable to immobilize nano particles into g-C 3 N 4 , where nanoparticles serve as spacers to isolate g-C 3 N 4 layers.…”