Phosphorus-doped polymeric carbon nitride nanosheets for enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen production

Abstract

Photocatalytic hydrogen production by water splitting is one of the most effective strategies for solar energy conversion and utilization. The metal-free polymeric carbon nitride (CN) has been widely used as an efficient photocatalyst for the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). However, to date, the solar to hydrogen conversion efficiency of the CN-based photocatalysts is still low. Herein, to boost the photocatalytic activity of CN, controllable phosphorus atoms were introduced to form P-doped CN (PCN) via an evacuated ampoule calcination strategy. Compared with bare CN, the optimized PCN exhibits remarkably enhanced photocatalytic HER activity, with the HER rate up to 261.2 µmol h−1 and 171.6 µmol h−1 under the simulated solar light and visible-light illumination, respectively. It was revealed that the boosted photocatalysis for HER is mainly ascribed to the P dopants that can synergetically increase the visible-light absorption and facilitate the charge transfer process. This present work highlights improving the photocatalytic energy conversion efficiency by controllable tuning of the heteroatom doping degree in photocatalysts.