A β-cyclodextrin Modified Graphitic Carbon Nitride with Au Co-Catalyst for Efficient Photocatalytic Hydrogen Peroxide Production

Guifu Zuo; Yuqian Zhang; Shanshan Liu; Zhaoliang Guo; Qiannan Zhao; Gopalan Saianand; Liwei Feng; Lijuan Li; Wangze Li; Ning Zhang; Xianguang Meng; Vellaisamy A L Roy

doi:10.3390/nano10101969

A β-cyclodextrin Modified Graphitic Carbon Nitride with Au Co-Catalyst for Efficient Photocatalytic Hydrogen Peroxide Production

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2020 Oct 4;10(10):1969. doi: 10.3390/nano10101969.

Authors

Guifu Zuo¹, Yuqian Zhang¹, Shanshan Liu², Zhaoliang Guo¹, Qiannan Zhao¹, Gopalan Saianand³, Liwei Feng¹, Lijuan Li¹, Wangze Li¹, Ning Zhang⁴, Xianguang Meng^{1

5}, Vellaisamy A L Roy⁶

Affiliations

¹ Hebei Provincial Laboratory of Inorganic Nonmetallic Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, North China University of Science and Technology, Tangshan 063210, China.
² College of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450001, China.
³ Global Centre for Environmental Remediation (GCER), Faculty of Science, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia.
⁴ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China.
⁵ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong 999077, China.
⁶ James Watt School of Engineering, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK.

Abstract

Photocatalytic hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) production has attracted considerable attention as a renewable and environment-friendly method to replace other traditional production techniques. The performance of H₂O₂ production remains limited by the inertness of graphitic carbon nitride (CN) towards the adsorption and activation of O₂. In this work, a photocatalyst comprising of β-cyclodextrin (β-CD)-modified CN with supporting Au co-catalyst (Au/β-CD-CN) has been utilized for effective H₂O₂ production under visible light irradiation. The static contact angle measurement suggested that β-CD modification increased the hydrophobicity of the CN photocatalyst as well as its affinity to oxygen gas, leading to an increase in H₂O₂ production. The rate of H₂O₂ production reached more than 0.1 mM/h under visible-light irradiation. The electron spin resonance spectra indicated that H₂O₂ was directly formed via a 2-electron oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) over the Au/β-CD-CN photocatalyst.

Keywords: graphitic carbon nitride; hydrogen peroxide; oxygen reduction reaction; photocatalysis; β-cyclodextrin.

Abstract

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