Triptycene incorporated carbon nitride based donor-acceptor conjugated polymers with superior visible-light photocatalytic activities

Polymeric carbon nitride (CN) has evoked considerable attention in photocatalysis, however, its π-deficiency conjugated frameworks engendering weak visible-light absorption and rapid charge recombination hinder the practical utilizations. Herein, a novel donor–acceptor (D-A) conjugated polymer based on triptycene incorporated carbon nitride ( T -CN) has been facilely prepared by thermal copolymerization of melamine and 2,6,14-triaminotriptycene. Combined with the density functional theory (DFT) calculations, it is found that the formation of intramolecular charge transfer and the extended π-conjugative effect in the D-A structure contribute to a broadened light-harvesting spectral range, a higher charge separation/transfer efficiency and more active sites of T -CN for photoredox reactions. The T -CN catalyst accomplished superior visible-light photocatalytic performance in both hydrogen evolving and carbon dioxide reduction. The optimal T -CN catalyst exhibited the highest hydrogen evolution rate of 80.9 ± 1.3 μmol·h −1 and carbon monoxide production rate of 8.1 ± 0.2 μmol·h −1 , which are ca. 8-fold and 20-fold of bulk CN, respectively. The convenient strategy of constructing D-A conjugated structure opens up a new intriguing avenue toward the rational creation of efficient polymeric nanomaterials for versatile applications of solar fuel production.