Surface defect-abundant one-dimensional graphitic carbon nitride nanorods boost photocatalytic nitrogen fixation

• Published in: New journal of chemistry 2020-12, Vol.44 (47), p.2651-2658
• Main Authors: Hao, Derek, Liu, Chuangwei, Xu, Xiaoxue, Kianinia, Mehran, Aharonovich, Igor, Bai, Xiaojuan, Liu, Xiaoqing, Chen, Zhijie, Wei, Wei, Jia, Guohua, Ni, Bing-Jie
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Ammonia; Carbon; Carbon nitride; Density functional theory; High temperature; Nanorods; Nitrogenation; Photocatalysis; Surface defects; Synthesis
• ISSN: 1144-0546; 1369-9261
• DOI: 10.1039/d0nj04068a

The synthesis of ammonia via the Haber-Bosch process requires high temperature and high pressure, which causes about 1.6% of global CO 2 emission every year. the development of a low-cost, facile ammonia synthesis method under ambient conditions is urgently required. Herein, we employed a facile approach to prepare defective g-C 3 N 4 nanorods with a narrower bandgap and a sub-gap, which can significantly enhance the light utilization ratio. More importantly, the defects of g-C 3 N 4 nanorods can also enhance the light adsorption and boost cleavage of N 2 molecules, which is the rate-determining step of nitrogen fixation. Compared with bulk g-C 3 N 4 , the photocatalytic N 2 reduction rate of defective g-C 3 N 4 nanorods as the catalysts was increased by 3.66 times. According to the density functional theory calculation results, the active sites should be an extra carbon in the ring formed in s -triazine rings. This work may provide in-depth insights into the development of novel defective photocatalysts for N 2 fixation. Defective g-C 3 N 4 nanorods enable to boots the adsorption and cleavage of N 2 molecules to achieve higher photocatalytic nitrogen fixation performance.