Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Huang, Chaofeng
• Wen, Yaping
• Ma, Jin
• Dong, Dandan
• Shen, Yanfei
• Liu, Songqin
• Ma, Haibo
• Zhang, Yuanjian

Titel

Unraveling fundamental active units in carbon nitride for photocatalytic oxidation reactions

Ist Teil von

• Nature communications, 2021-01, Vol.12 (1), p.320-320, Article 320

Ort / Verlag

England: Nature Publishing Group

Erscheinungsjahr

2021

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Free E-Journal (出版社公開部分のみ）

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Covalently bonded carbon nitride (CN) has stimulated extensive attention as a metal-free semiconductor. However, because of the complexity of polymeric structures, the acquisition of critical roles of each molecular constituent in CN for photocatalysis remains elusive. Herein, we clarify the fundamental active units of CN in photocatalysis by synthesizing CN with more detailed molecular structures. Enabled by microwave synthesis, the as-prepared CN consists of distinguishable melem (M1) and its incomplete condensed form (M2). We disclose rather than the traditional opinion of being involved in the whole photocatalytic processes, M1 and M2 make primary contributions in light absorption and charge separation, respectively. Meanwhile, oxygen molecules are unusually observed to be activated by participating in the photoexcited processes via electronic coupling mainly to M2. As a result, such CN has a higher activity, which was up to 8 times that of traditional bulk CN for photocatalytic oxidation of tetracycline in water.