The high photocatalytic efficiency and stability of LaNiO 3 /g-C 3 N 4 heterojunction nanocomposites for photocatalytic
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
BMC Chemistry Open Access
The high photocatalytic efficiency and stability of LaNiO3/g‑C3N4 heterojunction nanocomposites for photocatalytic water splitting to hydrogen Changyu Ye, Rui Wang, Haoyu Wang and Fubin Jiang*
Abstract A binary direct Z-scheme LaNiO3/g-C3N4 nanocomposite photocatalyst consisted with LaNiO3 nanoparticles and g-C3N4 nanosheets was successfully synthesized by means of mechanical mixing and solvothermal methods in order to improve the photocatalytic water splitting activity. The as-prepared materials were characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron microscope (SEM), Transmission Electron microscope (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscope (XPS), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR) and N2 adsorption–desorption experiments, respectively, demonstrating the formation of interfacial interaction and heterogeneous structure in L aNiO3/g-C3N4 nanocomposites. Under UV-light irradiation, the LaNiO3/g-C3N4 samples which without the addition of any noble metal as co-catalyst behaved enhanced photocatalytic water splitting activity compared with pure L aNiO3 and g-C3N4, owing to the Z-scheme charge carrier transfer pathway. Especially, the L aNiO3/70%g-C3N4 nanocomposite reach an optimal yield of up to 3392.50 µmol g−1 in 5 h and held a maximum H 2 evolution rate of 678.5 µmol h−1 g−1 that was 5 times higher than that of pure LaNiO3. Keywords: LaNiO3, Polymeric graphitic carbon nitride, Z-scheme heterostructure, Photocatalysis, Hydrogen production Introduction With the rapid development of modern society, there has been appeared the exhaustion of fossil fuels and environmental deterioration crisis. One form of environmentally friendly, economical and low cost renewable alternative energy was urgently needed under recent situation. Because of the high energy value and the benefit of green cleaning, hydrogen (H2) is a kind of the promising alternative new energy source that can become the substitute of the traditional carbon-based fossil fuels [1–4]. The light-driven photocatalytic water splitting to produce *Correspondence: [email protected] Department of Chemistry, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
hydrogen has become the most promising method for scientific research to obtain sustainable energy [5, 6]. Researchers from all the world had found a mount of semiconductor photocatalyst showing good photocatalytic activities for water splitting to produce hydrogen (H2) [7–9]. Perovskite-type semiconductor materials present excellent photocatalytic properties due to sufficient oxygen vacancies and variable metal valence. However, there still exist some apparent disadvantages about these catalytic material such as poor light stability, high electron–hole recombination rate and small surface area that contribute to the reduction of catalytic activity and stability [10–14]. Several approaches have been proposed to overcome these problems, such as doping metal (Cu, Al) [15–18] or metal compound (CdS, NiS, T iO2, BiVO4)
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