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Significant enhancement of photocatalytic performance by constructing porous g-C3N4 composed of nanosheets

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Abstract

Porous g-C3N4 composed of nanosheets (p-gCN-NS) was synthesized through firstly grinding the hydrochloric acid-treated melamine with ammonium chloride (NH4Cl) and then calcining the mixture at 550° C for 2 h. The photocatalytic properties were determined by degrading Rhodamine B (RhB) and tetracycline (TC) aqueous solution (10 mg/L, 100 mL). Results show that the crystallinity, size and thickness of g-C3N4 in p-gCN-NS reduced dramatically compared with those in g-C3N4 sample synthesized without the addition of NH4Cl (gCN). Specific surface area of p-gCN-NS was 63.65 m2·g−1, which was 6.7 times that of gCN. After photocatalysis for 50 min, the degradation rate of RhB achieved 99.32% by p-gCN-NS (100 mg), whose reaction rate constant (k = 0.09317 min−1) was 10.6 times higher than that of gCN. p-gCN-NS also exhibited excellent photocatalytic activity for degrading colorless tetracycline aqueous solution. The significant improvement of photocatalytic performance can be credited to the reduced sized and thickness of g-C3N4, higher specific surface area and pore structure, as well as the weakened recombination rate of photogenerated electron–hole pairs in p-gCN-NS. This work provides a feasible and facile method for synthesis porous g-C3N4 composed of nanosheets with excellent photocatalytic performance.

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The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

We would like to express our gratitude to Henan Province Natural Science Foundation, China (grant number 212300410407) and the Key Science and Technology Research Project of Henan province, China (grant numbers 182102210005) for their supports to this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhengzhou University, No. 100, Science Avenue, Zhengzhou, 450001, People’s Republic of China

    Tianran Hao, Shiping Sun, Hongliang Xu, Han Yu, Wenbo Cao, Gang Shao, Bingbing Fan, Hailong Wang & Hongxia Lu

  2. Qinghai Institute of Salt Lakes, Chinese Academy of Science, Xining, Qinghai, 810008, People’s Republic of China

    Shiping Sun

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  1. Tianran Hao
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Contributions

TH and SS were involved in investigation, material preparation, data collection and analysis, and writing the original draft. HX was responsible for conceptualization, methodology, supervision, project administration, review and editing. Han Yu took part in material preparation and data analysis. WC contributed to investigation and methodology. GS, BF, HW and HL participated in methodology and review. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Hongliang Xu.

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Hao, T., Sun, S., Xu, H. et al. Significant enhancement of photocatalytic performance by constructing porous g-C3N4 composed of nanosheets. Res Chem Intermed 49, 2827–2842 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11164-023-05030-6

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