Nitrogen Vacancy Structure Driven Photoeletrocatalytic Degradation of 4-Chlorophenol Using Porous Graphitic Carbon Nitride Nanosheets

Abstract

Incorporating vacancies has been demonstrated as an important approach to alter the catalytic properties of photocatalysts. Herein, a novel porous graphitic carbon nitride (GCN) nanosheet with tunable nitrogen vacancies was synthesized through the thermal treatment of the bulk GCN under an H 2 atmosphere. The resulting porous nanosheets possessed ∼25 nm in thickness, several hundred nanometers in lateral size, and a high surface area of 114 m 2 g −1 . The systematic characterization results revealed that the H 2 treatment induced the structure distortion of GCN with the creation of nitrogen vacancies. As a result, asprepared nanosheets exhibited considerably enhanced photoelectrocatalytic performances. After 180 min of simulated sunlight irradiation, only 19.5% of the total organic carbon still remained, while 4-chlorophenol was completely eliminated. This enhanced activity was mainly attributed to the increased specific surface area, improved light absorption, and the effective separation and transfer of photogenerated charge carriers, which was confirmed by the photoelectrochemical measurement results. Radical trapping studies revealed that • OH radicals and holes were involved as the major oxygen active species for the degradation of 4-chlorophenol. Our findings offer new insights into designing and developing highly efficient photocatalysts for environmental purification.

Nanocrystalline Cellulose-Derived Doped Carbonaceous Material for Rapid Mineralization of Nitrophenols under Visible Light

“…The faster degradation of 2-CP was attributed to the electron donating and withdrawing effect of chlorine, which activates the benzene ring and facilitates the degradation process. 40,41 The excellent photocatalytic activity of N-TiO 2 /C under visible light may be attributed to the fact that during synthesis TiO 2 interacts strongly with the hydroxyl groups of nanostructured NCs in the presence of polydopamine, which results in more doping on N-TiO 2 /C and generation of spherically shaped anchored TiO 2 on the surface of graphitic carbonaceous structures. Because of the formation of such structures, it is possible to produce close intimate interfacial interactions between TiO 2 at 2D heterojunction of the layers.…”

One-Step Carbothermal Synthesis of Robust CdS@BPC Photocatalysts in the Presence of Biomass Porous Carbons

“…To further verify the mechanism for TC degradation, scavenger experiments were performed. 49 Reduced photocatalytic efficiency for CdS@BPC-600 was expected in the presence of ammonium oxalate (AO), benzoquinone (BQ), and isopropanol (IPA) which were typical scavengers for h + , O 2…”

TiO2 Nanowires with Doped g-C3N4 Nanoparticles for Enhanced H2 Production and Photodegradation of Pollutants

“…The XPS spectra of Ti 2p displayed two peaks for Ti 4+ (Figure 5d), indicating that the Ti species were in the form of TiO 2 [27]. After peak splitting fitting, the broad N 1s peak was divided into three contributions (Figure 5e), namely, C=N-C (398.71 eV), N-C 3 (399.70 eV), and C-N-H (400.54 eV) [19]. The optical performance of the photocatalysts is shown in Figure 6a.…”

“…Over the past decade, g-C 3 N 4 has drawn worldwide attention due to its advantages of high stability, being green, being cheap, and being easy to synthesize, as well as unique electronic structure [ 19 , 20 ]. Furthermore, the morphology of materials also impacts the performance.…”