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In-situ construction of 2D direct Z-scheme g-C3N4/g-C3N4 homojunction with high photocatalytic activity

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Abstract

Constructing all-solid-state Z-scheme junction is a very effective strategy to design highly active photocatalysts for solar energy conversion and environmental purification. We herein firstly construct 2D g-C3N4/g-C3N4 Z-scheme homojunction by using a bottom-up approach, during which the supramolecular complex is initially formed, followed by a facile thermal polycondensation. Based on the active species trapping experiments, Mott–Schottky test and band edge position analysis, the prepared 2D nanosheet g-C3N4/g-C3N4 homojunctions are found to be Z-scheme type, different from those available reported ones with a type-II energy alignment. Benefiting from the specific 2D morphology with large exposed surface area and Z-scheme junction with efficient separation and high redox abilities of the photoinduced electrons and holes, the obtained 2D g-C3N4/g-C3N4 homojunctions are much more active than the conventional g-C3N4/g-C3N4 homojunction (CN-MT) and bulk g-C3N4 (CN-M) under visible light irradiation, validating by the high rhodamine degradation rate of 0.833 h−1, which is about 3.9 and 15.4 times higher than that of CN-MT (0.214 h−1) and CN-M (0.054 h−1), respectively. The present work sheds light on design of novel Z-scheme photocatalysts with specific morphology and thus further application in the field of environment or energy.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51772085, 21773099, 51471068 and U1530151), the Aid Program for Science and Technology Innovative Research Team in Higher Educational Institutions of Hunan Province.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Physics, School of Physics and Electronics, Hunan University, Changsha, 410082, China

    Qing Qiao, Wei-Qing Huang, Yuan-Yuan Li, Bo Li, Wangyu Hu, Wei Peng & Gui-Fang Huang

  2. School of Physics, Liaoning University, Shenyang, 110036, People’s Republic of China

    Xiaoxing Fan

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  1. Qing Qiao
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  2. Wei-Qing Huang
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  3. Yuan-Yuan Li
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Correspondence to Wei-Qing Huang or Gui-Fang Huang.

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Qiao, Q., Huang, WQ., Li, YY. et al. In-situ construction of 2D direct Z-scheme g-C3N4/g-C3N4 homojunction with high photocatalytic activity. J Mater Sci 53, 15882–15894 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-018-2762-x

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