Plasmonic ternary hybrid photocatalyst based on polymeric g-C3N4 towards visible light hydrogen generation

Yuping Che; Qingqing Liu; Bingxin Lu; Jin Zhai; Kefeng Wang; Zhaoyue Liu

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-57493-x

Plasmonic ternary hybrid photocatalyst based on polymeric g-C₃N₄ towards visible light hydrogen generation

Sci Rep. 2020 Jan 20;10(1):721. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-57493-x.

Authors

Yuping Che^#¹, Qingqing Liu^#¹, Bingxin Lu¹, Jin Zhai², Kefeng Wang³, Zhaoyue Liu¹

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Bio-Inspired Smart Interfacial Science, Technology of Ministry of Education and Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Biomedical Engineering, Beijing Key Laboratory of Bio-inspired Energy Materials and Devices, School of Chemistry, Beihang University, Beijing, 100191, P.R. China.
² Key Laboratory of Bio-Inspired Smart Interfacial Science, Technology of Ministry of Education and Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Biomedical Engineering, Beijing Key Laboratory of Bio-inspired Energy Materials and Devices, School of Chemistry, Beihang University, Beijing, 100191, P.R. China. zhaijin@buaa.edu.cn.
³ Henan Engineering Center of New Energy Battery Materials, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shangqiu Normal University, Shangqiu, 476000, Henan, P.R. China. wangkf2007@163.com.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect of noble metal nanoparticles (NPs) for photocatalysis has a significant enhancement. In this system, a plasmonic ternary hybrid photocatalyst of Ag/AgBr/g-C₃N₄ was synthetized and used in water splitting to generation H₂ under visible light irradiation. 18%Ag/AgBr/g-C₃N₄ showed the highest photoactivity, with the efficiency of hydrogen generation as high as 27-fold to that of pristine g-C₃N₄. Compared to simple mixture of Ag/AgBr and g-C₃N₄, hetero-composite Ag/AgBr/g-C₃N₄ showed a higher photoactivity, even though they contained same content of Ag/AgBr. We find that significant factors for enhancing properties were the synergistic effect between Ag/AgBr and g-C₃N₄, and the light absorption enhancing by SPR effect of Ag NPs. Ag/AgBr NPs firmly anchored on the surface of g-C₃N₄ and their high dispersion were also responsible for the improved activity and long-term recycling ability. The structure of Ag/AgBr/g-C₃N₄ hybrid materials and their enhancement to photocatalytic activity were discussed. Meanwhile, the possible reaction mechanism of this system was proposed.