Platinum Decoration of a 3D Oxidized Graphitic Carbon Nitride/Graphene Aerogel for Enhanced Visible-Light Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution

Abstract

Graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) has attracted considerable attention since its discovery for its catalysis of water splitting to hydrogen and oxygen under visible light irradiation. However, pristine g-C3N4 confers only low photocatalytic efficiency and requires surface cocatalysts to reach moderate activity due to a lack of accessible surface active sites. Inspired by the high specific surface area and superior electron transfer of graphene, we developed a strongly coupled binary structure of graphene and g-C3N4 aerogel with 3D porous skeleton. The as-prepared 3D structure photocatalysts achieve a high surface area that favors efficient photogenerated charge separation and transfer, enhances the light-harvesting efficiency, and significantly improves the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution rate as well. The photocatalyst performance is observed to be optimized at the ratio 3:7 (g-C3N4:GO), leading to photocatalytic H2 evolution of 16125.1 mmol. g-1. h-1 under visible light irradiation, more than 161 times higher than the rate achieved by bulk g-C3N4.