Construction of CoP/B doped g-C3N4 nanodots/g-C3N4 nanosheets ternary catalysts for enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen production performance

Abstract

CoP/g-C3N4, a kind of noble-metal-free binary photocatalyst, has been demonstrated to be active for water splitting. However, high recombination rate of charge carriers is still one of the biggest factors to restrict the photoactivity of CoP/g-C3N4. In this paper, Boron doped g-C3N4 nanodots (BCNDs) were introduced to CoP/g-C3N4 nanosheets (CoP/CNNS) and a novel CoP/BCNDs/CNNS ternary photocatalyst was constructed. Experimental characterization and testing results indicate that BCNDs/CNNS heterojunction was formed in CoP/BCNDs/CNNS ternary photocatalyst. Comparing with CoP/g-C3N4, CoP/BCNDs/CNNS facilitates electron-hole separation, and the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution rate can reach 1332.81 μmolg−1·h−1, which is approximately 9.7 times as high as CoP/CNNS. It owns an apparent quantum efficiency of 10.78% at 420 nm. This work would provide a novel strategy to construct high activity g-C3N4 based catalyst without noble metals.