Highly enhanced visible-light photocatalytic NOx purification and conversion pathway on self-structurally modified g-C3N4 nanosheets

• 来源期刊: 科学通报（英文版）
• 年，卷（期）: 2018,（10）
• 页码范围: 609-620
• 页数: 12页
• 语种: 英文

摘要

The unmodified graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) suffers from low photocatalytic activity because of the unfavourable structure. In the present work, we reported a simple self-structural modification strategy to optimize the microstructure of g-C3N4 and obtained graphene-like g-C3N4 nanosheets with porous structure. In contrast to traditional thermal pyrolysis preparation of g-C3N4, the present thermal condensation was improved via pyrolysis of thiourea in an alumina crucible without a cover, followed by secondary heat treatment. The popcorn-like formation and layer-by-layer thermal exfoliation of graphene-like porous g-C3N4 was proposed to explain the formation mechanism. The photocatalytic removal performance of both NO and NO2 with the graphene-like porous g-C3N4 for was significantly enhanced by self-structural modification. Trapping experiments and in-situ diffuse reflectance infrared fourier transform spectroscopy (DRIFTS) measurement were conducted to detect the active species during photocatalysis and the conversion pathway of g-C3N4 photocatalysis for NOx purification was revealed. The photocatalytic activity of graphene-like porous g-C3N4 was highly enhanced due to the improved charge separation and increased oxidation capacity of the .O2- Radicals and holes. This work could not only provide a novel self-structural modification for design of highly efficient photocatalysts, but also offer new insights into the mechanistic understanding of g-C3N4 photocatalysis.