Issue 3, 2017

Graphene oxide coupled carbon nitride homo-heterojunction photocatalyst for enhanced hydrogen production

Abstract

This contribution reports the synthesis, characterization and application of a new ternary homo-heterojunction photocatalyst for improved hydrogen production via water-splitting. The heterostructure is constructed by soft-grafting of graphitic carbon nitride (GCN) and graphene oxide (GO) into an amorphous carbon nitride (ACN) substrate. In this ternary hybrid, a cascaded redox-junction is formed that significantly facilitates the separation of photogenerated electron–hole pairs (EHPs), retards EHP recombination and shuttles electrons to the photocatalyst/liquid interface for proton reduction reactions. When deposited with 3 wt% Pt as a cocatalyst, this new photocatalyst exhibits hydrogen production of 251 μmol h−1 from 10 vol% aqueous triethanolamine solution under visible light (420 nm) irradiation with an apparent quantum efficiency of 6.3%. This ternary photocatalyst therefore outperforms stand-alone/binary photocatalysts and promises to be a viable alternative to metal-based photocatalysts.

Graphical abstract: Graphene oxide coupled carbon nitride homo-heterojunction photocatalyst for enhanced hydrogen production

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Research Article
Submitted
29 9 2016
Accepted
26 10 2016
First published
11 11 2016

Mater. Chem. Front., 2017,1, 562-571

Graphene oxide coupled carbon nitride homo-heterojunction photocatalyst for enhanced hydrogen production

M. Z. Rahman, J. Zhang, Y. Tang, K. Davey and S. Qiao, Mater. Chem. Front., 2017, 1, 562 DOI: 10.1039/C6QM00241B

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements