Wall-Mesoporous Graphitic Carbon Nitride Nanotubes for Efficient Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution

Graphitic carbon nitride (g-CN) has attracted tremendous attention as visible-light photocatalyst. However, for further improving the catalytic activity, multilevel and hierarchical nanostructuring of g-CN is highly desirable to effectively expose active sites and facilitate separation and migration of photoexciteded charge carriers for largely enhanced photocatalytic behavior. Here, we prepare wall-mesoporous graphitic carbon nitride nanotubes (g-CNNTs) by in situ annealing of urea microrod arrays preformed in virtue of a vertical gradient freeze growth (VGFG) method. Benefiting from the distinctive structural features, the hierarchical g-CNNTs exhibit a high photocatalytic H-2 production rate of 8789 mu mol h(-1) g(-1) with an excellent apparent quantum yield of 6.3 % under visible-light irradiation and long-term cycling stability. This work provides a facile and eco-friendly strategy to prepare a new type of carbon nitride-based nanostructural material for photocatalysis and environmental remediation.