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Superior ultra-thin nanoporous g-C3N4 photocatalyst embedded with S quantum dots: a non-metal Z-scheme visible-light composite

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Abstract

The replacing and surpassing of some functions of traditional metal-based photocatalysts by low-cost and high-efficiency non-metal semiconductor materials have become a research hotspot in functional materials. In this paper, the ultra-thin nanoporous g-C3N4 nanosheets were successfully embedded with highly dispersed S quantum dots (S QDs) by ultrasonic-assisted in-situ growth method, which originates from the disproportionation reaction of sodium thiosulfate. The formation of the composite was proved by XRD, XPS, AFM, TEM and HRTEM and proved that S QDs with a size of 1–3.5 nm were uniformly embedded in the surface of ultra-thin nanoporous g-C3N4, in which a tight and uniform 0D/2D heterojunction structure was designed and built. Meanwhile, the photocatalytic mechanism was investigated. It showed that the tight Z-Scheme heterojunction structure formed between S QDs and g-C3N4 improved the redox activity as well as the transfer ability of photogenerated electron holes. The system exhibited excellent photocatalytic efficiency that the complete degradation of RhB was achieved within 90 min under visible-light irradiation and revealed high stability. We believe that this research is important for the development of low-cost and efficient non-metal photocatalysts.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 10972025.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Chemical Resource Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, 100029, People’s Republic of China

    Yimeng Wang, Hecheng Ma, Jianjun Liu, Yingchun Yu, Shengli Zuo, Xiangdong Zhang & Shuxiang Zheng

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  1. Yimeng Wang
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  2. Hecheng Ma
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  3. Jianjun Liu
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  4. Yingchun Yu
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  5. Shengli Zuo
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  6. Xiangdong Zhang
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Contributions

Yimeng Wang contributed to conceptualization, methodology, investigation, writing draft. Jianjun Liu contributed to resources, supervision, writing, review and editing. Hecheng Ma, Xiangdong Zhang and Shuxiang Zheng contributed to investigation and data curation. Yingchun Yu contributed to the characterization. Shengli Zuo contributed to supervision. All authors read and contributed to the manuscript and discussed the results.

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Correspondence to Jianjun Liu.

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Wang, Y., Ma, H., Liu, J. et al. Superior ultra-thin nanoporous g-C3N4 photocatalyst embedded with S quantum dots: a non-metal Z-scheme visible-light composite. J Mater Sci 57, 274–284 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-021-06624-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-021-06624-4

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