Abstract
As a promising conjugated polymer, binary carbon nitride has attracted extensive attention as a metal-free and visible-light-responsive photocatalyst in the area of photon-involving purification of water and air. Herein, we report sulfur-doped polymeric carbon nitride microrods that are synthesized through thermal polymerization based on trithiocyanuric acid and melamine (TM) supramolecular aggregates. By tuning the polymerization temperature, a series of sulfur-doped carbon nitride microrods are prepared. The degradation of Rhodamine B (RhB) and the reduction of hexavalent chromium Cr(VI) are selected as probe reactions to evaluate the photocatalytic activities. Results show that increasing pyrolysis temperature leads to a large specific surface area, strong visible-light absorption, and accelerated electron-hole separation. Compared to bulk carbon nitride, the highly porous sulfur-doped carbon nitride microrods fabricated at 650 °C exhibit remarkably higher photocatalytic activity for degradation of RhB and reduction of Cr(VI). This work highlights the importance of self-assembly approach and temperature-control strategy in the synthesis of photoactive materials for environmental remediation.
Highlights
With the rapid advancement of urbanization and industrialization, a series of environmental issues has come about owing to the excessive industrial contaminations containing toxic organic pollutants and poisonous metal ions [1]
TM supramolecular aggregate is synthesized from a simplified way by mixing an equimolar mixture of trithiocyanuric acid and melamine in CH3 OH/H2 O solution at room temperature (Scheme 1), which is different from hydrothermal method in the previous literature [39,40,41,42]
Benefiting from the hydrogen-bonding interaction between trithiocyanuric acid and melamine, the triazine ring vibration of melamine is shifted to a lower wave-number from 814 to 781 cm−1, and the N–H stretching vibration of melamine is shifted to a lower wave-number from 3468 to 3420 cm−1 with enhanced intensity [40,41,42]
Summary
With the rapid advancement of urbanization and industrialization, a series of environmental issues has come about owing to the excessive industrial contaminations containing toxic organic pollutants and poisonous metal ions [1]. The supramolecular aggregates can be modified via copolymerization, element doping, composite, heterojunction, and salt-melt method [31,32,33] Such modification methods are usually relied on the additional chemicals (e.g., organic co-monomer, inorganic salt and acid) in the starting process, which may lead to an inhomogeneous mixture [34,35,36,37,38]. As far as we know, the utilization of a facile temperature-control protocol for the self-assembly synthesis of carbon nitride photocatalysts without adding extra additives is less explored. By controlling the condensation temperature of TM, a series of sulfur-doped carbon nitride microrods with diverse properties and photocatalytic activities are obtained. Our findings will open up new opportunities for future design and development of polymeric materials for environmental remediation and energy conversion
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
