A Borocarbonitride Ceramic Aerogel for Photoredox Catalysis

Abstract

Borocarbonitride (BCN) is a new type of photocatalyst, but bulk BCN shows a large band gap, and low surface area, and moderate activity for photocatalysis. Here, a three‐dimensional (3D) porous ceramic BCN aerogel was developed as an effective photocatalyst for relevant reactions. The unique structures endow the aerogel with an adjustable band gap and a high surface area, excellent stability, and improved crystallinity, which accelerates the separation and transfer of electron‐hole pairs and promotes catalytic kinetics, thus enhancing the performance of photocatalytic reactions for hydrogen generation and carbon dioxide reduction. This work supplies a low‐cost, convenient and green synthesis method for building ceramic aerogels, and it provides a simple colloid chemistry strategy combined with boron‐containing compounds to facilitate further innovative breakthroughs in the novel ceramic aerogel materials design and development in the field of catalysis.

Supporting Ultrathin ZnIn2S4 Nanosheets on Co/N‐Doped Graphitic Carbon Nanocages for Efficient Photocatalytic H2 Generation

“…The photocatalytic nature of the H 2 evolution reaction is revealed by activity evaluation under photoirradiation of different wavelengths (Figure S32, Supporting Information). The variation tendency of H 2 formation matches well with the absorption spectrum, indicating the water reduction reaction is driven by light excitation …”

“…The H 2 evolution activity of Co/NGC@ZIS is comparable or higher to those of recent works (Table S1, Supporting Information). The Co/NGC@ZIS photocatalyst affords a high apparent quantum efficiency (AQE) of 5.07% at monochromatic light irradiation of 420 nm without using Pt as the cocatalyst . Such findings highlight that supporting ultrathin ZnIn 2 S 4 NSs on the Co/NGC nanocages forming hierarchical hollow heterostructures greatly improves the H 2 evolution efficiency.…”

Ceramic boron carbonitrides for unlocking organic halides with visible light

“…23 Analogous to hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN), BCN exhibits excellent adsorption properties for organic molecules because of the existence of polar B-N bond and high specific surface area. [24][25][26] BCN ceramics are visible-light-responsive semiconductors with adjustable band gap energy and energy levels depending on the amount of carbon incorporated into the boron nitride (BN) frameworks. [27][28][29] deuteration experiment (Fig.…”

Reduction of structural hierarchy translates into variable influence on the performance of boron nitride aerogel

“…Existing in aerogel forms, some orthodox ceramics such as boron nitride and silicon carbide, which are well documented to possess intrinsic high thermal conductivity, have been revealed to exhibit super thermal insulation (Wang et al, 2020;Xu et al, 2019). Also, ceramic aerogel shows potential in other fields, such as catalysis (Luo et al, 2019) and sensing (Harley-Trochimczyk et al, 2016). Conceivably, more intriguing properties imparted by the special form of existence will be unveiled alongside the further devotion to this field.…”