Unravelling the favorable photocatalytic effect of hydrogenation process on the novel g-C3N4-TiO2 catalysts for water purification

Exploring desirable and photostable homostructured catalysts is an explosive scientific hotspot for energy crisis and wastewater treatment . Efficient pollutants removal from wastewater is an attractive route to sustainable development. We here present an ideal photocatalyst that incorporates both g-C 3 N 4 and TiO 2 sheets (TNs), creating a novel nanomaterial of the type g-C 3 N 4 /TNs catalyst. The obtained photocatalyst can accelerate the interfacial charge transfer rate. Subsequently, we prepared 2:1O − -g-C 3 N 4 /TNs photocatalysts by H 2 treatment, which not only generated more active defects on 2:1O − -g-C 3 N 4 /TNs surface, but also produced oxygen vacancies . As measured by the degradation of CR (CR), the as-prepared g-C 3 N 4 /TNs samples perform outstanding removal properties due to high photocurrent response under visible light irradiation, which are transcend than bulk g-C 3 N 4 or pure TNs separately. Specially, the obtained 2:1O − -g-C 3 N 4 /TNs catalysts exhibit the highest photocatalytic rate for decomposition of CR (86.7%, 2 h), which was 107.5, 7.167, and 1.43 times higher than that of TNs, g-C 3 N 4 , and 2:1 g-C 3 N 4 /TNs. The decisive factor in enhancing the photocatalytic ability of this optimal sample is the richly available reaction sites exposed by hydrogenation process .