Probing the role of H-ZSM-5 zeolite in the hydrogen evolution performance of graphitic carbon nitride

Graphitic carbon nitride (CN) hold great promise as a photocatalyst for generating hydrogen energy via water splitting, owing to its remarkable ability to respond to visible light and its strong reduction capacity. However, the photocatalytic water splitting for H 2 evolution performance of pure CN was impeded by its low surface area, inadequate hydrophilicity, and unsatisfactory photoelectric conversion efficiency. Here we tackled these challenges by synthesizing a series of CN/H-ZSM-5 composites with varying amount of H-ZSM-5 zeolite using a straightforward thermal copolymerization method. The contact angle and N 2 adsorption-desorption measurements confirmed that the incorporated hydrophilic and porous H-ZSM-5 zeolite contribute to increased surface area and improved hydrophilicity of the CN/H-ZSM-5 composites. Meanwhile the resulting CN/H-ZSM-5 composites exhibited significant separation and migration enhancement of photoexcited charge carriers. Consequently, the optimized CN/H-ZSM-5 composite, containing 50 mg of H-ZSM-5 zeolite, demonstrated 13 times increase in photocatalytic H 2 production rate than that of pure CN. This work not only provided a competitively universal approach on the design of high-efficiency CN based photocatalyst, but also clarified the role of H-ZSM-5 zeolite in the H 2 evolution enhancement.