Nitrogen vacancies and metal-free group intercalation on carbon nitride for super photocatalytic performance

Abstract

Here, a dual regulation strategy to construct nitrogen vacancies-modified and metal-free group-intercalated g-C3N4 (NP–CN) photocatalyst is proposed. The nitrogen vacancies in the planes of NP-CN could adjust the band-gap of CN, while the metal-free group intercalated between layers act as electron transport channels for fast charge carrier separation. The nitrogen vacancies as well as metal-free group intercalate significantly increase the photocatalytic performance in H2 evolution and dye degradation. The photocatalytic H2 evolution rate and apparent first-order rate constant for RhB removal of NP-CN24 is 22 and 7.3 times higher than that CN, respectively. This work provides a facile approach to design and synthesize new modification of CN photocatalyst via nitrogen vacancies and metal-free group intercalation to simultaneously improve the activity in the photocatalytic application field.