Immobilizing photogenerated electrons from graphitic carbon nitride for an improved visible-light photocatalytic activity.

ABSTRACT: Reducing the recombination probability of photogenerated electrons and holes is pivotal in enhancing the photocatalytic ability of graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4). Speeding the departure of photogenerated electrons is the most commonly used method of achieving this. To the best of our knowledge, there is no report on suppressing the recombination of photogenerated electron-hole pairs by immobilizing the electrons with ester functional groups. Here, for the first time the mesoporous g-C3N4 (mpg-C3N4) was integrated with polymethyl methacrylate, a polymer abundant in ester groups, which showed a photocatalytic activity unexpectedly higher than that of the original mpg-C3N4 under visible-light irradiation. Experimental observations, along with theoretical calculations, clarified that the im

SUBMITTER: Sun H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4779999 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature