Controlled Nucleation and Growth of Carbon Nitride Films on CNT Fiber Fabric for Photoelectrochemical Applications

Abstract

The controlled growth of carbon nitride (CN) films with tailored electronic properties and surface area is quite challenging due to the solid-state reaction and the lack of an efficient interaction between C-N monomers and substrates. Herein we report on the controlled growth of CN films over robust carbon nanotube fiber fabric, which is obtained by either direct calcination of melamine on their surface, that yields a bulk material, or by its chemical vapor deposition resulting in hybrid films. These embodiments are effective electrodes consisting of high-surface area CN containing a carbon nanotube fiber fabrics acting as scaffold and highly conducting built-in current collector. The obtained results confirm that carbon nanotubes act as nucleation center for the formation of CN films, forming close contact at the CN/CNT interphase, and resulting in efficient change transfer upon illumination and enhanced electrochemical surface area.

Structural and chemical approaches to enhance the photo/electrocatalytic performance of carbon/g-C3N4 composite materials

“…Specifically, the macroscopic fibers of CNTs are attractive conductive scaffolds because their porous but bundle like network structure of conductive nanocarbons produces high porosity and conductivity. Karjule et al 58 used CNT fibers as support to prepared CNT fibers/g-C 3 N 4 films composites by chemical vapor deposition of melamine on CNT fiber. They found the electrochemical double-layer capacitance of CNT fibers/g-C 3 N 4 is 1.61 mF cm −2 , and the electrochemical surface area was 60 times higher than when using FTO as the support.…”

Coating Polymeric Carbon Nitride on Conductive Carbon Cloth to Promote Charge Separation for Photocatalytic Water Splitting

“…The retention of the photocurrent density can be extended up to 360 min with preserving the performance at about 90 % (Figure S12). The performance and stability are significantly improved with respect to the films that were prepared by dip‐coating, comparable to that for which a mediator was used between PCN films and conductive layer [19,29,30] . The Nyquist plot of the electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) measurement was attempted as a photoanode at low frequency to illustrate the interfacial resistance between solid photocatalyst and liquid electrolyte solution (Figure S13).…”

Roles of Metal-Free Materials in Photoelectrodes for Water Splitting

“…PCN-coated CNTs can be conventionally drop-coated onto the FTO substrate as a photoelectrode, and the PD is increased by a factor of 2 with respect to that of the photoanode coating with PCN powder. Stimulated by this work, PCN was also acquired to deposit on CNT fiber as a photoanode to lead to improved performance . In this research, TVD approaches were used to grow PCN films on CNT fiber using melamine as a precursor.…”

“…(f) Raman spectra of PCN-coated CNT and pristine CNT. Reproduced with permission from ref . Copyright 2021, Wiley-VCH GmbH, Weinheim.…”

“…Stimulated by this work, PCN was also acquired to deposit on CNT fiber as a photoanode to lead to improved performance. 60 In this research, TVD approaches were used to grow PCN films on CNT fiber using melamine as a precursor. TEM images of the as-prepared fiber are shown in Figure 9b−e.…”