Plasma-Tuned nitrogen vacancy graphitic carbon nitride sphere for efficient photocatalytic H2O2 production

Yanmei Zheng; Yi Luo; Qiushi Ruan; Jin Yu; Xinli Guo; Weijie Zhang; Hang Xie; Zheng Zhang; Jianjie Zhao; Ying Huang

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2021.12.006

Plasma-Tuned nitrogen vacancy graphitic carbon nitride sphere for efficient photocatalytic H₂O₂ production

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2022 Mar:609:75-85. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2021.12.006. Epub 2021 Dec 2.

Authors

Yanmei Zheng¹, Yi Luo¹, Qiushi Ruan¹, Jin Yu¹, Xinli Guo², Weijie Zhang¹, Hang Xie¹, Zheng Zhang¹, Jianjie Zhao¹, Ying Huang³

Affiliations

¹ Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Metallic Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, China.
² Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Metallic Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, China. Electronic address: guo.xinli@seu.edu.cn.
³ School of Energy and Environment, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China. Electronic address: huangying@seu.edu.cn.

PMID: 34894556
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2021.12.006

Abstract

Graphitic carbon nitride (CN) is a promising photocatalyst for sustainable energy conversion. Meanwhile, N vacancies are useful for H₂O₂ generation; however, they are hard to control. In this study, the N vacancy CN sphere (NVCNS) is synthesized by H₂ plasma treatment to tune the NV. The as-synthesized NVCNS exhibits an efficient and stable photocatalytic H₂O₂ yield of 4413.1 μmol g_cat^-1h^-1, which is 2.5 and 4.6 times higher than that of CNS (1766.4 μmol g_cat^-1h^-1) and bulk CN (956.6 μmol g_cat^-1h^-1), respectively, using a Xe lamp with an intensity of 100 mWcm^-2. In particular, the charges recombination rate is remarkably reduced by introducing N defect state, promoting electron accumulation and O₂ adsorption, through theoretical calculation and experiments. Furthermore, the NV creates abundant unsaturated sites and induces strong interlayer interactions, leading to effective electronic excitation and the promotion of charge transport.

Keywords: First-principles calculations; Graphitic carbon nitride; Nitrogen vacancy; Photocatalytic H(2)O(2) production; Plasma.