CdS Nanocubes Adorned by Graphitic C3N4 Nanoparticles for Hydrogenating Nitroaromatics: A Route of Visible-Light-Induced Heterogeneous Hollow Structural Photocatalysis

Abstract

Modulating the transport route of photogenerated carriers on hollow cadmium sulfide without changing its intrinsic structure remains fascinating and challenging. In this work, a series of well-defined heterogeneous hollow structural materials consisting of CdS hollow nanocubes (CdS NCs) and graphitic C3N4 nanoparticles (CN NPs) were strategically designed and fabricated according to an electrostatic interaction approach. It was found that such CN NPs/CdS NCs still retained the hollow structure after CN NP adorning and demonstrated versatile and remarkably boosted photoreduction performance. Specifically, under visible light irradiation (λ ≥ 420 nm), the hydrogenation ratio over 2CN NPs/CdS NCs (the mass ratio of CN NPs to CdS NCs is controlled to be 2%) toward nitrobenzene, p-nitroaniline, p-nitrotoluene, p-nitrophenol, and p-nitrochlorobenzene can be increased to 100%, 99.9%, 83.2%, 93.6%, and 98.2%, respectively. In addition, based on the results of photoelectrochemical performances, the 2CN NPs/CdS NCs reach a 0.46% applied bias photo-to-current efficiency, indicating that the combination with CN NPs can indeed improve the migration and motion behavior of photogenerated carriers, besides ameliorating the photocorrosion and prolonging the lifetime of CdS NCs.

Modification of Polymeric Carbon Nitride with Au–CeO2 Hybrids to Improve Photocatalytic Activity for Hydrogen Evolution

“…To date, many studies have proved that constructing reasonable and novel heterostructures can efficiently decrease exciton binding energy and enhance charge separation for PCN-based materials [ 12 , 13 ]. For example, recently, researchers have successfully constructed g-C 3 N 4 -based heterostructure composites, such as metal oxide–g-C 3 N 4 [ 14 , 15 ], polymer–g-C 3 N 4 [ 16 ] and sulfide–g-C 3 N 4 [ 17 , 18 ] to enhance the photocatalytic activity through facilitating the separation of photogenerated charges and holes. In a typical example, Zheng et al constructed a CdSe–CN S-scheme heterojunction via a linker-assisted hybridization approach, and showed that CdSe–CN exhibited superior photocatalytic reactivity to CdSe and CN in water splitting and CO 2 conversion [ 19 ].…”

Efficient Purification of Methylene Blue Dye Wastewater by Integrated Photocatalysis and Photothermal Evaporation

“…(Chimupala et al, 2020;Kim, Gilak Hakimabadi, & Pham, 2021) A large number of materials have been developed as photocatalysts, such as semiconductor materials and metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) materials. (Liang et al, 2022;Varma et al, 2022;Xia et al, 2023a;Zhang et al, 2022b) NH2-MIL-53(Fe) (NMF), a kind of MOFs, is better than conventional semiconductors owing to its large pore volume, high specific surface area, appropriate valence band (VB) edges to take full advantage of visible light, and small Fe-O clusters that delay the compounding of photogenerated carriers. (Wang et al, 2021b) However, the powdered photocatalysts are difficult to reuse and even induce secondary pollution to aquatic environments at the end of the photocatalytic degradation process.…”