Post-annealing reinforced hollow carbon nitride nanospheres for hydrogen photosynthesis

Abstract

Hollow-structured g-C3N4 polymers with a high thermal stability up to 550 °C and an enhanced photocatalytic activity have been developed by post-annealing treatment, which effectively modifies the textural, crystal, and electronic properties of the g-C3N4 semiconductors without extra chemical assistance. This is a unique example of thermally and chemically stable conjugated polymers with hollow nanostructures and optoelectronic properties, promising the development of functional hollow g-C3N4 nanocomposites by chemical modifications like doping, surface grafting, and coupling with other inorganic/polymeric semiconductors with the aid of thermal treatment at high temperatures.

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

“…However, the Recently, the structural distortion strategy has also been used to realize the efficient photoactivity by thermal treatment in other works. However, no additional absorption edge was observed in these works [103,104].…”

Integrating CdS quantum dots on hollow graphitic carbon nitride nanospheres for hydrogen evolution photocatalysis

“…Crucial to the physical properties of these free-standing hollow nanosphere polymer is their extreme morphological, thermal and chemical stability against sintering in the air up to 500 o C. [29] This stable hollow conjugated structure could allow for designing functional nanoarchitectures, with large and interconnected exterior and interior surfaces that increase the amount of light absorbed and promote surface-dependent reactions by shuttling both the electronic and chemical species via the porous shell. The resulting 3D architectures of HCNS can not only provide large, accessible interface to host QDs for fast charge separation, but are also conducive to transporting reactants to the active sites.…”

MnPSe3 Monolayer: A Promising 2D Visible‐Light Photohydrolytic Catalyst with High Carrier Mobility

“…Moreover, 2D nature means short distance for the generated electrons and holes to migrate, reducing the possibility of electron–hole recombination, and then giving high quantum yields. Enlightened by some 2D materials which are predicted to be photocatalysts for water splitting under visible light,[[qv: 15b]],16 and especially some proved good photocatalysts in experiments such as g‐C 3 N 4 ,17 we investigated the band edges and optical properties of MPS 3 (M = Fe, Mn, Ni, Cd, Zn) and MPSe 3 (M = Fe, Mn) monolayers to screen more proper photocatalysts for water splitting. Then the carrier mobility was calculated through deformation potential (DP) theory for MnPSe 3 monolayer which is a direct‐band‐gap semiconductor and has strong absorption in the visible‐light region.…”