Improving the Visible-Light Photocatalytic Activity of Graphitic Carbon Nitride by Carbon Black Doping

Abstract

Hydrogen production by water splitting and the removal of aqueous dyes by using a catalyst and solar energy are an ideal future energy source and useful for environmental protection. Graphitic carbon nitride can be used as the photocatalyst with visible light irradiation. However, it typically suffers from the high recombination of carriers and low electrical conductivity. Here, we have developed a facile mix-thermal strategy to prepare carbon black-modified graphitic carbon nitrides, which possess high electrical conductivity, a wide adsorption range of visible light, and a low recombination rate of carriers. With the help of carbon black, highly crystallized graphitic carbon nitrides with built-in triazine and heptazine heterojunctions are obtained. Improved photocatalytic activities have been achieved in carbon black-modified graphitic carbon nitride. The dye removal rate can be three times faster than that of pristine graphitic carbon nitride and the photocatalytic H 2 generation is 234 μmol h –1 g –1 under visible light irradiation.

Insight into the photodegradation mechanism of bisphenol-A by oxygen doped mesoporous carbon nitride under visible light irradiation and DFT calculations

“… 31 Reports in the literature indicate that for pure g-C 3 N 4 , the peaks in the range of 1200–1650 cm −1 are assigned to the trigonal (N–(C) 3 ) and bridging C–NH–C units exemplifies the effective formation of the extended network of C–N–C bonds that make up the whole chemical nature of g-C 3 N 4 . 28 The peaks are also referred to as the typical stretching vibration modes of C N and C–N heterocycles. 32 The intensity of these peaks was lower for MCN, and shifted slightly to lower wavelength for O-MCN.…”

Embedded carbon in a carbon nitride hollow sphere for enhanced charge separation and photocatalytic water splitting

“…Graphitic carbon allotropes such as quantum dots, 46,47 graphene, [48][49][50][51] carbon nanotubes 52,53 and carbon black 54 were reported to be able to accept the photogenerated electrons from the conduction band of a photocatalyst, thus accelerating charge separation. A strong interaction between the carbon allotropes and the matrix is usually highly required for efficient interfacial charge transfer.…”

Anatase TiO2-Decorated Graphitic Carbon Nitride for Photocatalytic Conversion of Carbon Dioxide

“…Among them, artificial photosynthesis has been considered a challenging but promising and beneficial strategy to convert greenhouse gas CO 2 into valuable products by using photocatalysts under sunlight [1,6,7,8]. Recently, researchers using gCN based photocatalytic system for photoreduction of CO 2 have shown great progress [1,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19]. To improve its photocatalytic activity, the morphology of gCN has been modified or various heterojunctions have been developed to increase surface area of gCN or to more effectively separate photoinduced charge carriers on gCN.…”