In this work, a promising strategy to increase the broadband solar light absorption was developed by synthesizing a composite of metal-free carbon nitride-carbon dots (C3N4-C dots) and plasmonic titanium nitride (TiN) nanoparticles (NPs) to improve the photoelectrochemical water-splitting performance under simulated solar radiation. Hot-electron injection from plasmonic TiN NPs to C3N4 played a role in photocatalysis, whereas C dots acted as catalysts for the decomposition of H2O2 to O2. The use of C dots also eliminated the need for a sacrificial reagent and prevented catalytic poisoning. By incorporating the TiN NPs and C dots, a sixfold improvement in the catalytic performance of C3N4 was observed. The proposed approach of combining TiN NPs and C dots with C3N4 proved effective in overcoming low optical absorption and charge recombination losses and also widens the spectral window, leading to improved photocatalytic activity.
Keywords: carbon dots; carbon nitride; photocatalysis; surface plasmon; titanium nitride.