Phosphate group-mediated carriers transfer and energy band over carbon nitride for efficient photocatalytic H2 production and removal of rhodamine B

The development of effective methods that simultaneously regulate energy bands and electron transfer to realize high photocatalytic performance of graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) remains a major challenge. Herein, we developed a novel strategy to construct a phosphate-group-intercalated g-C3N4 nanosheet photocatalyst that is driven by visible light. A series of characterizations confirmed that phosphate groups were inserted between the g-C3N4 layers and formed a vertical channel. A porous ultrathin nanosheet structure was formed. The synergistic effect of the phosphate-group intercalation and porous ultrathin nanosheet structure endowed this material with controllable electronic structures and upshifted the conduction bands, while facilitating photogenerated charge transfer and providing numerous active reactive sites. As a result, the g-C3N4 intercalated with phosphate groups photocatalyst exhibited high photocatalytic activity for H-2 evolution and degradation of a coloured dye rhodamine B (RhB) under visible light. The maximum H-2 production rate and degradation rate constant of the phosphate-group-intercalated g-C3N4 nanosheets (CNP-5) were 17-fold and 6-fold higher than those of primal g-C3N4, respectively. This study provides new insights for the incorporating atomic groups with modification effects and represents a giant leap in the construction of two-dimensional (2D) materials. (C) 2021 Published by Elsevier B.V.