Bioinspired construction of g-C3N4 isotype heterojunction on carbonized poly(tannic acid) nanorod surface with multistep electron transfer path

Graphite carbon nitride (g-C 3 N 4 ) has a huge application potential in the photocatalysis field due to its unique conjugated structure. Inspired by the mussel adhesion protein, the cPTA/CNT/CNU (cPTA, carbonized poly(tannic acid); CNT, g-C 3 N 4 prepared by thiourea); CNU, g-C 3 N 4 prepared by urea) nanorod was synthesized by using PTA as the adhesive and template, and thiourea and urea as g-C 3 N 4 precursors. The CNT/CNU isotype heterojunction is assembled on the surface of porous cPTA nanorod, which effectively solves the problem of high photogenerated electron-hole recombination of pure g-C 3 N 4 . The optimal cPTA/CNT/CNU photocatalyst can degrade 95% of rhodamine B (RhB) within 1 h under visible light, which is much higher than CNT, CNU and CNT/CNU. With the conduction band potential difference of cPTA, CNT and CNU, a multistep electron transfer path forms in the cPTA/CNT/CNU, which can accelerate the electron transfer through the interface, thereby increasing the photocatalytic activity.