Modified Graphitic Carbon Nitride Nanosheets for Efficient Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution

Abstract

Considerable research efforts have been devoted to develop noble‐metal‐free cocatalysts coupled with semiconductors for highly efficient photocatalytic H2 evolution as part of the challenge toward solar‐to‐fuel conversion. Herein, a new cocatalyst with excellent activity in the electrocatalytic H2 evolution reaction (HER) that is based on Co sheathed in N‐doped graphitic carbon nanosheets (Co@NC) was fabricated by a surfactant‐assisted pyrolysis approach and then coupled with g‐C3N4 nanosheets to construct a 2 D‐2 D g‐C3N4/Co@NC composite photocatalyst by a simple grinding method. As a result of advantages in effective electrocatalytic HER activity, suitable electronic band structure, and rapid interfacial charge transfer brought about by the 2 D‐2 D spatial configuration, the g‐C3N4/Co@NC photocatalyst that contained 4 wt % Co@NC presented a high photocatalytic H2 generation rate of 15.67 μmol h−1 under visible‐light irradiation (λ≥400 nm), which was 104.5 times higher than that of pristine g‐C3N4. The optimum g‐C3N4/Co@NC photocatalyst showed a high apparent quantum efficiency of 10.82 % at λ=400 nm.

FeCo alloy@N-doped graphitized carbon as an efficient cocatalyst for enhanced photocatalytic H2 evolution by inducing accelerated charge transfer

“…1(f) can be divided into three species of C@C/CAC, CAN and CAO, which are located at 284.8 eV, 286 eV and 288.5 eV, respectively [38]. In comparison, C 1s peaks of FCC10 can be divided into CAC/C@C (284.6 eV) and N-C@N (288.1 eV) of g-C 3 N 4 [26]. Fig.…”

“…Black solid powder of FeCo@NGC nanoparticles was obtained. Similarly, Fe@NGC nanoparticles were prepared from the Fe 4 [Fe(CN) 6 ] 3 calcining at 500°C for 4 h. Co(NO 3 ) 2 Á6H 2 O and g-C 3 N 4 were added into anhydrous ethanol and stirred evenly, then dried at 60 ℃ and calcined at 500°C for 4 h to obtain Co@NGC nanoparticles [26].…”

“…1.0 wt% Pt was loaded on the surface of g-C 3 N 4 photocatalysts by in situ photo-deposition method using H 2 PtCl 6 [26].…”

Synergistic Enhancement of Photocatalytic Performance of Mesoporous TiO2 enabled by Tunable Crystal Phase and Hybridization with Graphene Oxide

“…This illustrates the efficient charge separation and migration of photogenerated electron-hole pairs of doping MA/MAR-TiO 2 /GO nanocomposites. [28,32] The photoluminescence spectra (PL) (Figure 8) exhibits that the recombination of electron and hole pairs is significantly hindered by the recombination of GO into TiO 2 .…”

Competitive Self-Assembly of PANI Confined MoS2 Boosting the Photocatalytic Activity of the Graphitic Carbon Nitride

“…Composed of the earth-abundant C and N, the g-C 3 N 4 nanosheet exhibits a suitable band structure and has gained extensive investigation interest in photocatalytic applications since the ground-breaking work of Professor Wang. − Among the processes for the photocatalytic hydrogen reaction, the transport as well as the utilization of the photogenerated charge carriers was the last while the most important one for improving photocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) activity of g-C 3 N 4 . − Consequently, lots of cocatalysts were adopted for improving the utilization efficiency of the photogenerated charge carriers, ,− whereas the adoption of just a single cocatalyst exhibited a little positive effect on the transport of the charge carriers owing to the very limited conductivity of the cocatalyst. , For this reason, the conductive component, such as rGO, porous carbon, and MXenes, was employed in most of the electrocatalytic HER catalysts. − Note that facile in situ embedding both the cocatalyst and novel conductive component onto the photocatalyst is especially important from theoretical and practical viewpoints.…”