Abstract
A new g-C3N4/SrTa2O6 heterojunction photocatalyst was designed and prepared by chimie douce (soft chemistry) method where carbon nitride (g-C3N4) was deposited over the metastable perovskite phase of SrTa2O6. The morphological study of the heterojunction using SEM and STEM revealed that g-C3N4 nanofibers are dispersed uniformly on the surface of SrTa2O6 plates leading to the intimate contact between them. The heterojunction could achieve a high and stable visible light photocatalytic H2 generation of 137 mmol/h/mole of g-C3N4, which is much larger than the amount of hydrogen generated by one mole of pristine g-C3N4. A plausible mechanism for the observed enhanced photocatalytic activity for the heterojunction is proposed on the basis of effective charge separation of photogenerated electron-hole pairs, supported by band position calculations and photo-physical properties of g-C3N4 and SrTa2O6.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 448-458 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | Applied Catalysis B: Environmental |
Volume | 217 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2017 |
Funding
The work was supported by the Wake Forest University Center for Energy, Environment, and Sustainability and by NSF MRI1040264. Support from the WFU Science Research Fund is also acknowledged. A portion of this research was completed at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, which is a DOE Office of Science User facility. The authors would like to thank Dr. Cynthia Day, Wake Forest University, Department of Chemistry, for her support in collecting PXRD data. ZDH gratefully acknowledges a Graduate Research Fellowship award from the National Science Foundation (No. DGE-1148903) and the Georgia Tech-ORNL Fellowship.
Keywords
- Heterojunction
- Hydrogen
- Perovskite
- Photocatalysis
- Semiconductor