Crystalline carbon nitride (CCN)-based semiconductors have recently attracted widespread attention in solar energy conversion. However, further modifying the photocatalytic ability of CCN always results in a trade-off between high crystallinity and good photocatalytic performance. Herein, a facile defect engineering strategy was demonstrated to modify the CCN photocatalysts. Results confirmed that the obtained D-CCN maintained the high crystallinity; additionally, the hydrogen production rate of D-CCN was approximately 8 times higher than that of CCN. Particularly, it could produce H2 even if the incident light wavelength extended to 610 nm. The significantly improved photocatalytic activity could be ascribed to the introduction of defects into the CCN polymer network to form the midgap states, which significantly broadened the visible-light absorption range and accelerated the charge separation for photoredox catalysis.
Keywords: conjugated polymer; crystalline carbon nitride; defect engineering; hydrogen evolution; photocatalysis.
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