High activity and CH4 selectivity for photocatalytic CO2 reduction by Cu modified C3N4 nanotubes

The photocatalytic CO 2 reduction has the problems of low selectivity of single product. Here, the preparation of Cu modified tubular C 3 N 4 (CTN) was studied. The increase of the active site inhibits the recombination of electrons (e-) and holes (h + ) and improves the selectivity of CO 2 reduction products. Finally, the CO and CH 4 yields of 1.5 % CTN photocatalyst are 11.55 μmol·g −1 and 4.72 μmol·g −1 , respectively, which are 5 times higher than that of tubular C 3 N 4 photocatalyst. The selectivity of 2 % CTN to CH 4 is up to 68 %, indicating that the prepared CTN photocatalyst has high CO 2 reduction activity and CH 4 selectivity.