Regulation of bandgap and interfacial conductivity: Construction of carbon-doped three-dimensional porous h-BN/rGO hybrid for hydrogen evolution

Water splitting by photocatalysis technique is regarded as an eco-friendly hydrogen production strategy. However, the poor photoresponsivity and automatic electron-hole recombination greatly restrict the HER performance of conventional semiconductor photocatalyst. Here, to utilize the stable electrochemical property of hexagonal phase boron nitride (h-BN) and improve its defect of wide bandgap ( E g ≈ 4.2 eV), reduced graphene oxide (rGO) was applied to construct three-dimensional (3D) porous h-BN/rGO hybrid accompanied by a carbon-doping strategy without template assistance, then a carbon-doped 3D porous h-BN/rGO (C-BNRG) hybrid with large BET surface area was successfully prepared. As the synergistic effect of h-BN/rGO heterointerface and carbon-doping, the improved photoresponsivity and electrochemical property were presented, and the resultant 3D porous C 0.4 -BNRG hybrid presented not only greatly enhanced HER activity (157.63 μmol·g −1 ·h −1 ) but excellent durability in pH = 8.5, which was prominently higher than pristine h-BN (～36.7 times), C-BN (～12.1 times) and 3D porous BNRG hybrid (～7.0 times). This study offers a template-free approach to develop non-metallic based 3D porous hybrid for outstanding HER performance.