Chemsuschem Chemistry And Sustainability, Energy & Materials 2015-04-24

Mesoporous carbon nitride-tungsten oxide composites for enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen evolution.

Kamalakannan Kailasam, Anna Fischer, Guigang Zhang, Jinshui Zhang, Michael Schwarze, Marc Schröder, Xinchen Wang, Reinhard Schomäcker, Arne Thomas

Index: ChemSusChem , doi:10.1002/cssc.201403278, (2015)

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Abstract

Composites of mesoporous polymeric carbon nitride and tungsten(VI) oxide show very high photocatalytic activity for the evolution of hydrogen from water under visible light and in the presence of sacrificial electron donors. Already addition of very small amounts of WO3 yields up to a twofold increase in the efficiency when compared to bulk carbon nitrides and their composites and more notably even to the best reported mesoporous carbon nitride-based photocatalytic materials. The higher activity can be attributed to the high surface area and synergetic effect of the carbon nitrides and the WO3 resulting in improved charge separation through a photocatalytic solid-state Z-scheme mechanism. © 2015 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.