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Nitrogen defect engineering in porous g-C3N4 via one-step thermal approach

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Abstract

Graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4), a smart material with fascinating properties, finds extensive use in applications such as visible-light-driven photocatalysis and lithium-ion batteries. Recently, much research has been focused on increasing the surface area of g-C3N4 by creating nitrogen defects in its structure. Here, we report a controlled one-step thermal approach for creating nitrogen defects without adding any external reducing/oxidizing agent to engineer its overall structure. Unique ion beam analysis techniques such as Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy (RBS) and elastic recoil detection analysis (ERDA) were used to investigate elemental composition and quantify hydrogen concentrations, respectively. The defect-modified g-C3N4 demonstrated an increased surface area and bandgap compared to raw g-C3N4. A maximum surface area of almost 2.35 times of the raw g-C3N4 was achieved for the sameple heated at 650 °C for 2 h. With the proposed one-step thermal approach, we have achieved an increase in C/N ratio, bandgap, and surface area for all defect-modified g-C3N4 samples. This study provides a simple defect engineering strategy for g-C3N4 which was verified with ion beam analysis technologies.

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Acknowledgements

Mr. Chris Purcell is acknowledged for his assistance during IBA characterization. The research was financed by the New Zealand Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment (C05X2007).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Isotope Centre, GNS Science, PO Box 31312, Lower Hutt, 5010, New Zealand

    R. A. Sharath, F. Fang, J. Futter, W. J. Trompetter & J. Kennedy

  2. Global Innovative Center for Advanced Nanomaterials, College of Engineering, Science and Environment, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, 2308, Australia

    G. Singh & A. Vinu

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  1. R. A. Sharath
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Sharath, R.A., Fang, F., Futter, J. et al. Nitrogen defect engineering in porous g-C3N4 via one-step thermal approach. emergent mater. 6, 1117–1125 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42247-022-00421-8

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