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Dopamine Modified g‑C3N4 and Its Enhanced Visible-Light Photocatalytic H2‑Production Activity
journal contribution
posted on 2018-05-18, 00:00 authored by Pengfei Xia, Mingjin Liu, Bei Cheng, Jiaguo Yu, Liuyang ZhangPhotocatalytic
water splitting is a promising strategy to convert
solar energy into chemical energy. Herein, a series of g-C3N4/polydopamine (g-C3N4/PDA) composites
were successfully fabricated by in situ polymerization of dopamine
on the g-C3N4 surface. Among all the as-prepared
composites, the best photocatalytic hydrogen evolution rate of the
as-prepared composites was up to 69 μmol h–1 under the irradiation of visible light (λ > 420 nm), which
was about 4.5 times than that of pristine g-C3N4 (16 μmol h–1). The enhancement of photocatalytic
H2 evolution is reasonably attributed to the markedly enhanced
light harvesting, broadened spectral response range and low onset
potential of H2 production, as well as effective separation
and rapid transportation of photogenerated charge carriers. More importantly,
the surface modification of g-C3N4 by a small
amount of PDA can effectively inhibit the overgrowth of Pt nanoparticles
(NPs) during the photocatalytic reactions, which promotes the photoelectron
injection and better photocatalytic activity. This work should provide
a new insight into preparing metal-free polymer–polymer composites
with effective solar energy conversion.