Fabrication of graphitic carbon nitride films by inkjet printing

Abstract

Graphitic carbon nitride (g‐C3N4) has recently arisen at the forefront of researching in many areas. For this reason, the establishment of attractive and functional methodologies for the preparation of g‐C3N4 films and coatings to develop novel applications is very important. Therefore, this paper is focused on taken advantage of the functionalities of ultrasound-assisted liquid-phase exfoliation (UALPE) process and inkjet printing (IJP) technique for the fabrication of g‐C3N4 films. By an integral analysis, a stable and printable colloidal ink containing exfoliated g‐C3N4 with an average particle size of 263 nm was formulated. Reproducible and well-defined g‐C3N4 films with 10, 20 and 30 printing-passes have been obtained where the distinctive characteristic related to the automatic droplets’ deposition provided by IJP technique allowed an easy control on the spatial uniformity, thickness and transparency. Additionally, the inkjet printed g‐C3N4 films were evaluated as a fluorescence sensor exhibiting a good response to the presence of Ag+ in aqueous solution. The strategy here reported can be exploited for the deposition of large-area and complex patterns of g‐C3N4 onto a variety of rigid and flexible substrates through the simple and low-cost UALPE and IJP approaches.