Nitrogen rich carbon nitride synthesized by copolymerization with enhanced visible light photocatalytic hydrogen evolution

Article abstract of DOI:10.1039/c7nj03659k

A novel method for preparing visible light enhanced photocatalytic carbon nitride was developed by copolymerization of melamine with a nitrogen rich precursor. The synthesized carbon nitride, CN-THDT_x, with a unique structure exhibits strong visible light absorption ability. XPS results confirmed that the as-prepared CN-THDT_x contains abundant nitrogen in a range of 53.0-77.4 at%. Moreover, the band gap can be efficiently controlled by changing the ratio of THDT. Under visible light irradiation, CN-THDT_0.15 exhibited the highest hydrogen production (2.3 times than pure g-C₃N₄). After twelve continuous cycling experiments for hydrogen production for 4 h and carrying out one experiment for 48 h, the photocatalytic activity of CN-THDT_0.15 showed negligible change, suggesting that the prepared sample has great potential application for photocatalytic generation of hydrogen from water splitting.

Full text of DOI:10.1039/c7nj03659k

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ISSN 1144-0546
PAPER
Jason B. Benedict et al.
The role of atropisomers on the photo-reactivity and fatigue of
diarylethene-based metal–organic frameworks
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DOI: 10.1039/C7NJ03659K
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Nitrogen Rich Carbon Nitride Synthesized by Copolymerization
with Enhanced Visible Light Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution
Liang Luo, a,b Mei Zhang, a Pei Wang, a Yuanhao Wang, a Fu Wang a*
Received 00th January 20xx,
Accepted 00th January 20xx
A novel method for preparing visible light enhanced photocatalytic carbon nitride was proposed by copolymerization
melamine with nitrogen rich precursor. The synthesized carbon nitride named CN-THDTX with special structure exhibiting
strong visible light absorption ability. XPS results confirmed the as-repared CN-THDTX contain abundant nitrogen in a range
of 53.0~77.4 at. % . And the band gap can be efficiently controlled by changing the ratio of THDT. Under visible light
irradiation, CN-THDT0.15 exhibited the highest hydrogen production 2.3 times than pure g-C3N4. After twelfth circling
experiments and 48 hours continue hydrogen production test, the photocatalytic activity of CN-THDT0.15 shows negligible
subsiding, suggesting the prepared sample has great potential application for photocatalytic generating hydrogen from
water splitting.
DOI: 10.1039/x0xx00000x
www.rsc.org/
of mesoporous g-C3N4 and noble metal deposition.14-16 For
example, Xiong et al. use K-doped g-C3N4 to increase visible
light photocatalytic performance of NO removal.17 However,
Introduction
In the late twentieth century, environmental pollution,
resource shortage and ecological destruction have been
regarded as serious problems in the worldwide.1 Considerable
attention then have been focused on the development of
green, safe and reproducible energy such as wind, solar and
biomass power.2,3 Among various novel energies, using solar
to decompose water for hydrogen production in the presence
of photocatalysts was considered as a promising approach
since it was first reported by Fujishima and Honda in 1972.4,5
Traditional potocatalysts such as TiO2, ZnO have been widely
accepted in the photocatalytic generating hydrogen, but the
high cost, low solar-energy utilization efficiency and wide band
gap limited the further usage.6-8 It is therefore significant to
prepare photocatalysts based on a stable, cheap and facile
route.
these reported methods usually involve relatively complicated
and unsafe processes as well as low production yields. To
compensate for these disadvantages, copolymerization
method was developed alternatively to prepare superior
photocatalysts.18,19 Previous studies have confirmed that
copolymerization can effectively improve the photocatalytic
activity of carbon nitride due to extend the π conjugated
system and adjust the energy band structure.20-22
Inspired by this strategy, herein we firstly synthesized a
nitrogen rich melamine-like monomer 2,4,6-trihydrazino-1,3,5-
triazine (THDT), and then copolymerizing it with melamine to
prepare nitrogen rich carbon nitride (CN) as depicted in
Scheme 1. The prepared CN named as CN-THDTX (x represents
the mass ratio of THDT to melamine) and displayed different
In recent years, metal-free two-dimensional (2D) materials
such as graphene, graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) as well as
hexagonal boron nitride have been widely used in
photochemistry and photocatalysis.9-11 Owning to the excellent
chemical stability, visible light harvesting and easy availability,
polymer semiconductor based on g-C3N4 has attracted much
research attention.12 However, the narrow visible light
absorption band still restricted its performance.13 To solve
these problem, substantial efforts have been made on
enhancing the optical properties and then improving
photocatalytic activity such as elemental doping, preparation
a.Laboratory of Environmental Sciences and Technology, Xinjiang Technical Institute
of Physics & Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi, Xinjiang 830011,
China.
b.University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China.
* Corresponding Authors: E-mail address: wangfu@ms.xjb.ac.cn
Scheme 1. Scheme illustration of copolymerization between
melamine and THDT monomer.
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morphology and elemental composition in contrast to pure g- THDT in an agate mortar, the x represents the mass ratio of
View Article Online
C3N4. Furthermore, it exhibited broad visible light absorption, THDT (0.1, 0.15, 0.2). Then the reDsOulI:te10d.10m39i/xCt7uNrJe036w59aKs
increased electrons and holes separation efficiency, suitable transferred to muffle furnace and calcined at 520 oC for 4 h.
band gap and ultimately demonstrated 2.3 times hydrogen
Photocatalytic measurement
evolution incensement, suggesting copolymerization with
nitrogen rich monomer could be used to fabricate visible light The photocatalytic reaction was carried on in a quartz reaction
enhanced carbon nitride.
vessel with a closed gas circulation and evacuation system.
Taking 100 mg of catalyst powder in 100 mL aqueous solution
containing 10 mL triethanolamine (act as sacrificial electron
donor). The surface of prepared sample was loaded 3 wt% of
Pt particles by in-situ photo-deposition method using
Experimental
Materials and characterizations
H2PtCl6·6H2O as precursor. To remove air completely, the
All chemicals were analytical grade and purchased from
Adamas-beta. The morphology was determined by scanning
electron microscopy (SEM, JEOL 6700F) and transmission
electron microscopy (TEM, JEM-2011 TEM,200kV). The
structure was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) using
Bruker D2 (Bruker D8, 2θ = 10° to 80°) and infrared spectrum
(FTIR) Bruker Equinox 55 instrument. Optical properties of
samples were recorded on a ShimadzuSolidSpec-3700DUV and
Thermo Scientific F-7000. Electron paramagnetic resonance
(EPR) spectra was measured by Bruker A-300EPR X-band
spectrometer. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was
measured on a VG Multilab 2000 system. Brunauer-Emmett-
Teller (BET) of all the samples was analyzed by N2
adsorption/desorption isotherms (Quantachrome Instrument
Corp.).
system was evacuated several times before light illumination.
The test temperature was kept at 280K by a flow of cooling
water. The amount of produced gas was measured at certain
time interval (1 h) by online gas chromatography connected
with
a thermal conductive detector. The stability was
measured by 12 circling experiments and each circle is 4 hours.
Results and discussions
The material of CN-THDTX is successfully prepared via calcining
melamine with different ratio of THDT, and the CN-THDT0.15
achieves a maximum hydrogen production under visible light.
The morphology of pure g-C3N4 and CN-THDTX was first
studied by SEM and TEM. As shown in Fig. 1a, pure g-C3N4
presents typical irregular bulk shape and piles together
without order. It can be further confirmed by TEM (in Fig. 3d),
which display a layer platelet-like appearance in the absence
of lattice.24 After copolymerization, the bulk structure
disappeared and some fibrous structure would be observed
(Fig. 1b), consisting with the TEM observation in Fig. 1e which
shows some strip-shape structures in the CN-THDT0.15. For CN-
THDT (prepared by THDT alone), large number of pore
structures have emerged and the porous are more amorphous
(Fig. 1c and f). We speculate from SEM and TEM confirmed
that THDT could destroy the layer framework of g-C3N4, which
may have an effect on its photocatalytic performance.
Preparation of 2,4,6-trihydrazino-1,3,5-triazine (THDT)
The THDT was synthesized according to previous report.23
Specially, adding 40 mL NH2NH2·H 2O (80%) to 5g 2,4,6-
trichloro-1,3,5-triazine powder, then the mixture was stirred
and refluxed for 3 h at 130 oC. When the solution cooled down
to room temperature, a white powder was obtained. The solid
product was washed with water until pH = 7 then dried in air,
yield, 3.6 g (72%).
Preparation of CN-THDTX
CN-THDTx was synthesized by copolymerization of THDT with
Compared with pristine g-C3N4, the color of prepared CN-
melamine. Mixing 3.0 g melamine and a certain amount of THDTX changed significantly. As shown in Fig. 2a, g-C3N4 is
Fig. 1 SEM images of g-C3N4 (a), CN-THDT0.15 (b), and CN-THDT
Fig. 2 (a) Digital image, (b) UV-vis DRS absorption spectra and
(c) Kubelka-Munk plots of prepared samples.
(c). And TEM images of g-C3N4 (d), CN-THDT0.15 (e) and CN-
THDT (f).
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Table 1 The element containing of prepared catalysts from XPS.
yellow, whereas the color became more and more darker then
to deep brown with increased concentrations of THDT. Color
change is always related to the light absorption ability, which
can be confirmed by UV-vis spectra in Fig. 2b. For pure g-C3N4,
the absorption band appears in the region within 450 nm.
After co-polymerizing with THDT, the band gradually red shift
and the sample of CN-THDT could almost absorb the whole
visible light. The band gaps of samples were analyzed using
transformed Kubelka-Munk formula. According to Fig. 2c, the
band gaps of CN-THDT0.1, CN-THDT0.15, CN-THDT0.2 CN-THDT
are 2.73, 2.69, 2.67, 2.65, 1.98 eV, respectively, all narrower
than g-C3N4 (2.78 eV). From the Fig. 2b and c, it can be clear
observed that doping nitrogen rich THDT can continuously
reduce the band gap of CN and improve its visible light
absorption ability.
View Article Online
DOI: 10.1039/C7NJ03659K
catalysts
g-C3N4
C (at. %)
48.2
N (at. %)
49.6
O (at. %)
2.2
CN-THDT0.1
CN-THDT0.15
CN-THDT0.2
CN-THDT
44.4
42.4
31.8
21.4
53.0
56.0
67.4
77.2
2.6
1.6
0.8
1.4
the N content in prepared catalysts ranging of 53.0~77.2%
much higher than g-C3N4. The high N element content may be
a plausible reason for the enhanced light harvesting in the
visible region. Furthermore, the increased N element may
provide more active sites to enhance the photocatalytic
activity of carbon nitride.22,30
The functional groups of prepared samples were study by
FTIR, as displayed in Fig. 3a, the characteristic absorption
peaks of THDT at 3306, 2939, 1591, 1385, 1202, 1083, 947, 804,
647 cm-1 are consistent well with previous reported,23
indicating THDT molecule has been synthesized successfully.
The broad peaks from 3000 to 3500 cm-1 are due to the N-H
stretches and the peaks at 900 to 1700 cm-1 are corresponding
to the triazine derivatives,25 suggesting CN-THDTX contains the
similar chemical states with pristine g-C3N4. To further study
the element status, XPS was employed to analyze the chemical
composition of pristine g-C3N4 and CN-THDT0.15. As shown in
Fig. 3b, both samples demonstrate similar peaks at 284, 400
and 531 eV, corresponding to C1s, N1s and O1s, respectively.26
Two spectra at 284.3, 287.9 eV of C1s spectrum in Fig. 3c could
be attributed to C-C, C-N.27,28 The spectrum of N1s (Fig. 3d)
exhibits three fitted peaks at 398.4, 400.5 and 404.2 eV, which
are associated with C-N=C and N-C3 and C-N-H groups.29 The
FT-IR and XPS data further confirming the g-C3N4 and CN-
THDTx contain similar chemical states, but the element
contents are obviously different. As shown in table 1,
The phase structures of g-C3N4 and CN-THDTX were
characterized by XRD (Fig. 4a). Two diffraction peaks located at
13.0° and 27.6° can be denoted to (100) and (002) diffraction
of g-C3N4.31,32 The dominant peak at 27.6° can be ascribed to
the stacking of carbon nitride layers, and the other around
13.0° could be assigned to the in-plane repeating unites of the
continuous heptazine framework. Moreover, with the increase
of THDT content, the peak around 27.6° shifted slightly to
small angle, which might result from expansion of the periodic
interlayer.13 The unpaired electrons were analyzed by EPR, the
intensity of the signal at 2.003 correspond to an unpaired
electron in π-conjugated aromatic rings (Fig. 4b).33,34 The result
indicated that copolymerization with nitrogen rich THDT could
significantly increase the separation of charge carriers and
enhance delocalizing excitons.35 To further understand the
transfer and recombination processes of CN-THDT, PL spectra
and photocurrent were also measured. As display in Fig. 4c, PL
emission intensity of CN-THDTX research a minimum value
when x = 0.15, revealing the sample CN-THDT0.15 may have the
best performance in electron-hole pairs separation and
Fig. 4 (a) XRD, (b) EPR, (c) fluorescence intensity and (d)
photocurrent of prepared samples.
Fig. 3 (a) The FT-IR spectra of samples. (b) XPS spectra of g-
C3N4 and CN-THDT0.15. (c and d) High-resolution XPS spectra of
C 1s and N 1s.
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DOI: 10.1039/C7NJ03659K
Fig. 7 (a) Valence band XPS spectra of g-C3N4 and CN-THDT0.15
.
(b) Band structure of g-C3N4 and CN-THDT0.15. CB, conduction
band; VB, valence band.
results of FL spectra and photocurrent response. However,
increasing the concentration of THDT beyond 0.15 induced
activity drop, the reason may be the layer structure of g-C3N4
damage and the probability of electron and hole
recombination increasing. Beside photocatalytic activity, the
stability of catalyst is also important in practical application, so
the hydrogen production was proceed for 48 h to test the
stability of CN-THDT0.15. As shown in Fig. 6b, the H2 production
was continuously observed with negligible change after twelve
times circling experiments, revealing CN-THDT0.15 have great
stability for practical usage.
F
ig. 5 The N2 sorption isotherms of g-C3N4, CN-THDT0.1, CN-
THDT0.15, CN-THDT0.2 and CN-THDT, inset figure illustrates the
surface area.
transportation, which can be proved by photocurrent test. As
shown in Fig. 4d, it is clearly that photocurrent of CN-THDT0.15
is larger than other samples, nearly 3.5 times higher than
pristine g-C3N4.
The isotherms and the surface area of prepared catalysts
was measured and showed in Fig. 5. All the sample exhibit a
type IV isotherm, suggesting the existence of mesoporous. And
the surface area of prepared catalysts was compared inset of
To further investigate the band gap properties and the
photocatalytic activity improvement of CN-THDT0.15
, the
samples of CN-THDT0.15 and g-C3N4 were analyzed by valence
band XPS spectra. As shown in Fig. 7a, the VB of the CN-
THDT0.15 shows up-shift to 1.75 eV from 1.88 eV of pristine g-
C3N4. Based on the energy band theory, the CB of CN-THDT0.15
can be calculated as -0.92 eV which lower than -0.85 eV of g-
C3N4. The schematic energy structures of g-C3N4 and CN-
THDT0.15 are provided in Fig. 7b, it is obvious that CN-THDT0.15
is more suitable for hydrogen evolution because of the
narrower band gap and more negative CB potential.
Fig. 5, the calculated surface area (SBET) of g-C3N4, CN-THDT0.1
,
CN-THDT0.15, CN-THDT0.2 and CN-THDT are 6.36, 3.88, 5.27,
5.51, 8.96 m2/g, respectively. The result illustrates that this
copolymeration method have a little influence on the surface.
Compared with g-C3N4, the CN-THDT0.1, CN-THDT0.15 and CN-
THDT0.2 show a little surface area decline consisted well with N
doped carbon nitride reported by Fang et al.,36 revealing the
activity improving of CN-THDT0.15 was due to the N element
increasing not the surface area change.
Based on the special morphology, wide visible light
absorption range and suitable band gap, the photocatalytic
hydrogen evolution of CN-THDTX and g-C3N4 was evaluated
under visible light irradiation (>420 nm). As shown in fig. 6a,
the amounts of produced H2 increase when copolymerization
with THDT and the maximum hydrogen production can be
obtained by CN-THDT0.15, which is consistent well with the
Conclusions
In summary, a facile, efficient and low-cost copolymerization
method was utilized to fabricate efficient photocatalysts using
THDT and melamine as precursors. The effect of THDT on the
morphology, structure and band gap of prepared g-C3N4 were
investigated using SEM, TEM, EPS, XPS and XRD. Owning to the
unique structural, wide visible light absorption and increased
electrons and holes separation efficiency, CN-THDT0.15 displays
excellent photocatalytic ability. The results may offer
alternative strategy to prepare visible light enhanced
photocatalysts though copolymerization with nitrogen rich
precursor.
Conflicts of interest
There are no conflicts to declare.
Fig. 6 (a) Photocatalytic activities of g-C3N4 and CN-THDTX. (b)
Stability evaluation of CN-THDT0.15 with irradiation time of 48 h.
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24 J. S. Zhang, M. Zhang, C. Yang and X. C. Wang, Adv. Mater.,
Acknowledgements
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DOI: 10.1039/C7NJ03659K
2014, 26, 4121-4126
Financial supports by the ‘1000 Talent Program’ (The
Recruitment Program of Global Experts) and Shenzhen
Peacock Plan (KQTD2015071616442225) are gratefully
acknowledged.
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Nitrogen rich carbon nitride synthesized and application for photocatalytic water-
splitting hydrogen production