Self-assembled synthesis of defect-engineered graphitic carbon nitride nanotubes for efficient conversion of solar energy

By Zhao Mo, Hui Xu, Zhigang Chen, X. She, Yanhua Song, Jingjie Wu, P. Yan, Li Xu, Y. Lei, Shangqin Yuan and 1 more. Applied Catalysis B: Environmental, 2018

350 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract High-yield and uniform-size graphitic carbon nitride nanotubes (g-C3N4 nanotubes) with abundant nitrogen defects are synthesized for the first time by a green and acid-alkali-free synthesis using a sole melamine precursor. This approach utilizes the slow in-situ conversion of part of melamine into cyanuric acid and consequent molecular self-assembly with the rest of melamine to form supramolecular intermediate. The following pyrolysis converts the supramolecular intermediate to g-C3N4 nanotubes with abundant nitrogen defects. The morphology thus resulted preferable performance than the traditional molecular self-assembly in which the mixture of melamine and cyanuric acid is used as precursors. The g-C3N4 nanotubes with orderly tubular morphology of length-diameter ratio of 30–70 exhibit excellent hydrogen evolution rate (118.5 μmol h−1), which is obviously superior to the bulk g-C3N4. The apparent quantum efficiency of g-C3N4 nanotubes under irradiation at 420 nm is achieved at 6.8%, which is among the top of one dimensional (1D) g-C3N4 structure, such as g-C3N4 nanotubes, nanowires and nanorods. The improved photocatalytic performance benefits from the tubular structure and the nitrogen defects, which lead to the improved optical absorption, more exposed active edges, nitrogen defects active sites, enhanced charge transfer and separation efficiency, higher surface area, fast and long-distance electron transport, and longer fluorescence lifetime. Beside hydrogen evolution reaction, the g-C3N4 nanotubes also have broad applications in environmental treatment and photoelectrochemical detection of organic dyes.

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

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/9efb11cf96d522b8d91aa98a6c5160af7b60e8d9

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In Electrical and Electronic Engineering

1. Huaming Li
2. Hua Tang
3. Hui Xu
4. Jingsan Xu
5. C. Tung
6. Run Shi
7. Lizhu Wu
8. Xiaofei Yang

In Materials Chemistry

1. Hua Tang
2. Qinqin Liu
3. Xiaofei Yang
4. Huaming Li
5. Hui Xu
6. Jingsan Xu
7. C. Tung
8. Run Shi

In Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

1. Tierui Zhang
2. Hua Tang
3. Qinqin Liu
4. Huaming Li
5. Run Shi
6. Xiaofei Yang
7. Hui Xu
8. Jingsan Xu

Citations in the corpus

• Supramolecular precursor strategy for the synthesis of holey graphitic carbon nitride nanotubes with enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen evolution performance (2019, background): “Transient photocurrent response is an effective technique for probing the recombination processes of photoexcited charge carriers [39].”
• A review of the current status of graphitic carbon nitride (2020, methodology): “As an example of the self-templating approach, Mo et al.([87]) reported for the first time the preparation of”
• Unveiling the origin of boosted photocatalytic hydrogen evolution in simultaneously (S, P, O)-Codoped and exfoliated ultrathin g-C3N4 nanosheets (2019, background): “1 (002) corresponds to the interlayer-stacking of the g-C3N4 layered structure [42, 43], indicating that the original crystal structure of g-C3N4 is largely retained after doping with different nonmetal elements.”