Fullerene modified C₃N₄composites with enhanced photocatalytic activity under visible light irradiation

Abstract

Fullerene modified C3N4 (C60/C3N4) composites with efficient photocatalytic activity under visible light irradiation were fabricated by a simple adsorption approach. The as-prepared C60/C3N4 composites were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), UV-vis diffuse reflectance absorption spectra (DRS), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and photoluminescence spectra (PL). The photocatalytic degradation of rhodamine B (RhB) by the C60/C3N4 composites was investigated and optimized, suggesting that the optimal amount of C60 in the composites was 1 wt%. The significantly enhanced photocatalytic activity could be attributed to the efficient separation of photogenerated electrons and holes in the C60/C3N4 composites. A possible mechanism of C60/C3N4 composites as photocatalysts was proposed.

Enhanced visible light photocatalytic H2 production activity of g-C3N4 via carbon fiber

“…The combination of CF with g-C 3 N 4 can improve the photocatalytic H 2 production of the latter, which can be attributed to the synergic effects of improved separation of electron-hole pairs through efficient electron transfer, increased specific surface area and pore volume, and enhanced visible light absorption in the resultant CF/g-C 3 N 4 composites, as discussed above and being consistent with other reports on photocatalysts containing carbon based materials [43,[52][53][54][55][56]. Moreover, owing to the photothermal effect, CF can increase the temperature of the photocatalytic reaction system after visible light irradiation, which may also contribute to the improved photocatalytic H 2 production of CF/g-C 3 N 4 composites [27].…”

“…A variety of carbon materials, including carbon nanosphere [52], carbon nanotubes [53], graphene [54], fullerene [55] and carbon black [56], have been introduced into g-C 3 N 4 to improve the conductivity and catalytic performance of the latter. Among all the carbon materials, the electrochemical properties of 1D carbon fiber (CF) and carbon nanotube are alike, but the former can be easily synthesized from a few amount of inexpensive polymers via electrospinning technique, being more consistent with the requirement of a low cost compared to the carbon nanotube [57,58].…”

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

“…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). On the contrary, the use of g-C 3 N 4 for the degradation of emerging contaminants is still limited (Hernández-Huresti et al 2016).…”

Synthesis of nanoporous carbon nitride using calcium carbonate as templates with enhanced visible-light photocatalytic activity

“…Recently, graphite-like carbon nitride (g-C 3 N 4 ), a novel and metal-free photocatalyst, has attacked much attention because it has many advantages of non-toxic, inexpensive, high stability, simple preparation, reaction controllable, etc. G-C 3 N 4 with the band gap of 2.70 eV is capable of the visible absorption and exhibits high photocatalytic efficiency in water splitting, decomposition of pollutants, and oxidation of organic matters under visible light irradiation [10][11][12][13]. However, the low specific surface area and high recombination rate of photo-generated electrons and holes of bulk g-C 3 N 4 greatly limit its efficiency in various practical applications.…”

“…Therefore, many strategies have been taken to modify g-C 3 N 4 such as doping metal-nometal ions [12][13][14][15], combining with other semiconductors [18][19][20][21][22], constructing g-C 3 N 4 -based Z-scheme [23][24][25][26], fabricating the π conjugated structure to reduce the position of the valence band [25,26], and designing an appropriate textural porosity [29][30][31][32][33][34][35]. The fabrication of porous g-C 3 N 4 with high surface area and tunable pore diameter is particular interest because a larger surface area of photocatalyst can be favorable for the photoactivity by providing more contact chances between the photocatalysts and substances.…”