P-doped g-C3N4 with triple calcinations for dramatic photocatalytic performance

Abstract

Graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) is a fresh type of environmentally friendly photocatalytic material with the potential to degrade pollutants in water. In particular, g-C3N4 (CN) has significant characteristics in the treatment of antibiotics, which has attracted extensive attention from researchers. However, due to the less active sites and fast carrier recombination rate resulting from the block morphology, the CN has unsatisfactory photocatalytic performance up to now. Therefore, in this paper, a thinner and smaller CN nanosheets with more active sites and slower carrier recombination rate were successfully prepared by a combination of P element doping and triple calcination modifications. The modified 1.5% P-CN-3 not only has a 2.24-fold increase in the degradation ability of antibiotic Tetracycline (TC) compared to pure CN, but also has a hydrogen production rate of 2268.27 µmol·g− 1·h− 1 for water decomposition. This paper provides an effective approach for the modification of CN.