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Enhanced photoelectrochemical cathodic protection performance of g-C3N4 caused by the co-modification with N defects and C deposition

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Abstract

g-C3N4 is a promising material for the application in the area of photoelectrochemical cathodic protection. However, it suffers from limited light absorption and lower charge separation efficiency. In this work, a N defects and C deposition co-modified g-C3N4, C–g-C3Nx, was prepared by NaOH-assisted sintering and ethanol-assisted hydrothermal treatment. The presence of N defects and C deposition was verified by the XRD, SEM and XPS tests. The N defects changed the band structure of g-C3N4 by lowering down the conduction band position, therefore widening the light absorption range of g-C3N4. In addition, the N defects and C deposition co-modification promotes the charge transfer process of g-C3N4, leading to increased separation efficiency of the photogenerated charge carriers. Therefore, C–g-C3Nx shows enhanced photoelectrochemical cathodic protection performance for the coupled 316L stainless steel. It can provide a photoinduced potential drop of 120 mV and a photoinduced current density of 9.1 μA cm−2, which is three times that of pristine g-C3N4.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41676069, 41576114, 41376126), Qingdao Innovative Leading Talent Foundation (Grant No. 15-10-3-15-(39)-zch) and Qingdao Science and Technology Achievement Transformation Guidance Plan (Applied Basic Research, Grant No. 14-2-4-4-jch). And this work was also financially supported by State Key Laboratory for Marine Corrosion and Protection, Luoyang Ship Material Research Institute, China (Project No. 614290101011703).

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  1. Qingji Zhang and Jiangping Jing are co-first authors.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Material Science and Engineering, China University of Petroleum, 66 Changjiang West Road, Qingdao, 266580, China

    Qingji Zhang & Yan Li

  2. Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Corrosion and Bio-fouling, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 7 Nanhai Road, Qingdao, 266071, China

    Jiangping Jing, Zhuoyuan Chen, Mengmeng Sun & Jiarun Li

  3. State Key Laboratory for Marine Corrosion and Protection, Luoyang Ship Material Research Institute, Wenhai Road, Qingdao, 266237, China

    Zhuoyuan Chen & Likun Xu

  4. Center for Ocean Mega-Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 7 Nanhai Road, Qingdao, 266071, China

    Jiangping Jing, Zhuoyuan Chen, Mengmeng Sun & Jiarun Li

  5. Open Studio for Marine Corrosion and Protection, Pilot National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology (Qingdao), No. 1 Wenhai Road, Qingdao, 266237, China

    Jiangping Jing, Zhuoyuan Chen, Mengmeng Sun & Jiarun Li

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  1. Qingji Zhang
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Zhang, Q., Jing, J., Chen, Z. et al. Enhanced photoelectrochemical cathodic protection performance of g-C3N4 caused by the co-modification with N defects and C deposition. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 30, 15267–15276 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-019-01899-5

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