Electroless plating Ni-P cocatalyst decorated g-C3N4 with enhanced photocatalytic water splitting for H2 generation

By K. Qi, Yubo Xie, Ruidan Wang, Shu-yuan Liu, Zhen Zhao. Applications of Surface Science, 2019

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Abstract This work reports the nickel-phosphorus (Ni-P) cocatalyst decorated graphitic C3N4 (g-C3N4/Ni-P) for photocatalytic water splitting to H2 generation. The g-C3N4/Ni-P composite is prepared through two steps, first step is thermal decomposition of urea to produce g-C3N4 and the second step is electroless plating to coast Ni-P on the g-C3N4 surface, resulting in the noticeable increase of the photocatalytic activity of g-C3N4. Among these as-prepared samples reported in this work, the highest photocatalytic activity is detected at 3 wt% (g-C3N4/Ni-P-3%), in which H2 production rate is 1051 μmol g−1 h−1. However, higher than 3 wt% Pt modification the g-C3N4 generates only 841 μmol g−1 h−1 of H2, and almost no generation of H2 by pure g-C3N4 has been determined. Based on photoluminescence and photocurrent measurements, a photocatalytic mechanism for pure g-C3N4 and g-C3N4/Ni-P-3% has been suggested, that is, the loading of Ni-P NPs accelerates the separation of photogenerated e−-h+ pairs and relaying photogenrated e− via Ni-P particles to react with H2O, and thus improves photocatalytic performance of g-C3N4 for water splitting into H2 generation.

Subfields: Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Materials Chemistry, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/34390593ce1c1abf51a699e1dec0478ea2538347