Construction of Cu2S/Nv-C3N4 p-n heterojunctions for enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen production under visible light

Abstract

The high photogenerated electron-hole complexation rate has been the main reason limiting the practical application of carbon nitride, while the construction of heterojunction can promote the separation of photogenerated carriers, broaden the light absorption range and effectively improve its photocatalytic activity. Therefore, in this work, Cu2S was loaded onto g-C3N4 nanosheets by in situ deposition, and a series of Cu2S/Nv-C3N4 p-n heterojunctions were prepared by varying the loading amount of Cu2S. The photocatalytic performance test results showed that the best photocatalytic hydrogen production performance of 10% Cu2S/Nv-C3N4 reached 197 μmolg−1h−1, which was 11.4 times that of pure Nv-C3N4 and 47.5 times that of pure Cu2S. The enhanced photocatalytic activity is attributed to the formation of Cu2S/Nv-C3N4 p-n heterojunction, which effectively promotes the separation and transfer of photogenerated electron-hole and enhances light absorption. This work constructs a novel type of C3N4 heterojunction composite, which provides a new way to improve the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution performance of C3N4.