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Nano Research 2022, 15(1): 551-556 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3519-4
Research Article | Issue | Published: 12 May 2021

Facile synthesis of C3N4-supported metal catalysts for efficient CO2 photoreduction

Show Author's Information Yun-Nan Gong1,2,§,  Bi-Zhu Shao2,§,  Jian-Hua Mei2,  Wei Yang1,  Di-Chang Zhong1( ),  Tong-Bu Lu1
Institute for New Energy Materials and Low Carbon Technologies School of Materials Science and Engineering School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Tianjin University of Technology Tianjin 300384 China
Key Laboratory of Jiangxi University for Functional Material Chemistry College of Chemistry & Chemical Engineering Gannan Normal University Ganzhou 341000 China

§ Yun-Nan Gong and Bi-Zhu Shao contributed equally to this work.

Keywords:
metal-organic frameworks, g-C3N4, CO2 reduction, photocatalysts, highly dispersed metal
Topics:
Nanocatalysts
Cite this article:
Gong Y-N, Shao B-Z, Mei J-H, et al. Facile synthesis of C3N4-supported metal catalysts for efficient CO2 photoreduction. Nano Research, 2022, 15(1): 551-556. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3519-4
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

Facile synthesis of photocatalysts with highly dispersed metal centers is a high-priority target yet still a significant challenge. In this work, a series of Co-C3N4 photocatalysts with different Co contents atomically dispersed on g-C3N4 have been prepared via one-step thermal treatment of cobalt-based metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and urea in the air. Thanks to the highly dispersed and rich exposed Co sites, as well as good charge separation efficiency and abundant mesopores, the optimal 25-Co-C3N4, in the absence of noble metal catalysts/sensitizers, exhibits excellent performance for photocatalytic CO2 reduction to CO under visible light irradiation, with a high CO evolution rate of 394.4 μmol·g–1·h–1, over 80 times higher than that of pure g-C3N4 (4.9 μmol·g–1·h–1). In addition, by this facile synthesis strategy, the atomically dispersed Fe and Mn anchoring on g-C3N4 (Fe-C3N4 and Mn-C3N4) have been also obtained, indicating the reliability and universality of this strategy in synthesizing photocatalysts with highly dispersed metal centers. This work paves a new way to develop cost-effective photocatalysts for photocatalytic CO2 reduction.


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Electronic supplementary material
About this article

Facile synthesis of C3N4-supported metal catalysts for efficient CO2 photoreduction

Show Author's information Yun-Nan Gong1,2,§, Bi-Zhu Shao2,§, Jian-Hua Mei2, Wei Yang1, Di-Chang Zhong1( ), Tong-Bu Lu1
Institute for New Energy Materials and Low Carbon Technologies School of Materials Science and Engineering School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Tianjin University of Technology Tianjin 300384 China
Key Laboratory of Jiangxi University for Functional Material Chemistry College of Chemistry & Chemical Engineering Gannan Normal University Ganzhou 341000 China

§ Yun-Nan Gong and Bi-Zhu Shao contributed equally to this work.

Abstract

Facile synthesis of photocatalysts with highly dispersed metal centers is a high-priority target yet still a significant challenge. In this work, a series of Co-C3N4 photocatalysts with different Co contents atomically dispersed on g-C3N4 have been prepared via one-step thermal treatment of cobalt-based metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and urea in the air. Thanks to the highly dispersed and rich exposed Co sites, as well as good charge separation efficiency and abundant mesopores, the optimal 25-Co-C3N4, in the absence of noble metal catalysts/sensitizers, exhibits excellent performance for photocatalytic CO2 reduction to CO under visible light irradiation, with a high CO evolution rate of 394.4 μmol·g–1·h–1, over 80 times higher than that of pure g-C3N4 (4.9 μmol·g–1·h–1). In addition, by this facile synthesis strategy, the atomically dispersed Fe and Mn anchoring on g-C3N4 (Fe-C3N4 and Mn-C3N4) have been also obtained, indicating the reliability and universality of this strategy in synthesizing photocatalysts with highly dispersed metal centers. This work paves a new way to develop cost-effective photocatalysts for photocatalytic CO2 reduction.

Keywords: metal-organic frameworks, g-C3N4, CO2 reduction, photocatalysts, highly dispersed metal

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Publication history
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Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 28 February 2021
Revised: 12 April 2021
Accepted: 13 April 2021
Published: 12 May 2021
Issue date: January 2022

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2021

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21861001, 21931007, 21962002, 22001043, and 22071182), the National Key R & D Program of China (No. 2017YFA0700104), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangxi Province (No. 20202BAB203001), the Science Foundation of Jiangxi Provincial Office of Education (No. GJJ190753), the 111 Project of China (No. D17003) and the Science & Technology Development Fund of Tianjin Education Commission for Higher Education (No. 2018KJ129).

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