Hexagonal hollow porous tubular graphitic carbon nitride with rich-π-electrons for enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen evolution

It is greatly desirable to simultaneously modulate the micromorphology and π-electrons of graphitic carbon nitride (GCN) to achieve highly photocatalytic hydrogen (H 2 ) evolution activity. Here, hexagonal hollow porous tubular GCN with rich-π-electrons (GCNT) was successfully fabricated via a simple self-assembly engineering coupled with a thermal polymerization approach. Compared with bulk GCN, incorporation of pyridine groups into the skeleton of GCNT not only significantly increased the specific surface area , exposed more active sites, and improved utilization of photons, but also expanded the π-electrons density, optimized the electronic band structure , promoted the rapid separation/migration of charge carriers. As a result, GCNT exhibited superior photocatalytic activity , with a H 2 evolution rate of 20.1μmol h −1 under visible light irradiation (λ > 420 nm), which was approximately 6.1 times higher than that of bulk GCN. The enhancement photocatalytic activity is ascribed to the hexagonal hollow porous tubular morphology and rich-π-electrons synergistic effect. The present study proposes a promising strategy for exploiting the highly efficient photocatalytic H 2 evolution of GCN by modulating microscopic morphology and π-electrons.