@article{Ma2026, 
author = {Lixia Ma and Lu Zhang and Xiaojie Zhou and Jie Yang and Deng Li and Xuqian Zhao and Yinuo Su and Yu Chen and Zong-Huai Liu and Ruibin Jiang},
title = {Revealing the electron transfer mechanism of defective carbon nitride during photocatalytic H2O2 production},
year = {2026},
journal = {Nano Research},
volume = {19},
number = {1},
pages = {94907870},
keywords = {carbon vacancy, hydrogen peroxide photosynthesis, defective carbon nitride, frustrated Lewis pairs, femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy (fs-TAS)},
url = {https://www.sciopen.com/article/10.26599/NR.2025.94907870},
doi = {10.26599/NR.2025.94907870},
abstract = {Photosynthesis is a promising method for H2O2 production, but its application in pure water is limited by slow oxidation kinetics and rapid photocarrier recombination of photocatalysts. Herein, a novel defective carbon nitride photocatalyst (D-C3−xN4) containing the C vacancies and the frustrated Lewis pairs (B and N of cyano group) is designed for H2O2 photosynthesis, and the role of C vacancies on the electron transfer mechanism during photocatalysis is systematically investigated. The D-C3−xN4 exhibits a H2O2 production rate of 140.1 μmol·g−1·h−1 in pure water, which is 87.6 times that of C3N4. Such superior performance for H2O2 photosynthesis is found to arise from the C vacancies and frustrated Lewis pairs (FLPs). The C vacancies have strong electron-trapping ability, which greatly enhances the separation of photocarriers. The C vacancies can also effectively reduce O2 to *OOH via a proton-coupled process, which significantly accelerates the O2 reduction kinetics. Meanwhile, the FLPs show an outstanding catalytic activity for H2O oxidation. This study not only provides a new structure for highly active photocatalysts, but also deepens the understanding of the electron transfer mechanism of photocatalysts with trapped sites.}
}