Carbon Nitride Co-catalyst Activation Using N-Doped Carbon with Enhanced Photocatalytic H2 Evolution.

Photocatalytic water splitting holds huge potential to meet the current challenges of energy and environments. Among them, polymeric carbon nitride (CN) has drawn much attention as a promising metal-free photocatalyst. As it is known, a number of promising co-catalysts have been developed to improve catalytic reactions, Pt nanoparticles is still among the best co-catalysts for CN in photocatalytic H2 evolution, due to the suitable Fermi level to transfer excited electrons and the low overpotential for H2 reduction. Herein, we report the interface engineering of urea-derived bulk CN and Pt co-catalyst by using a small portion of N-doped carbon (N-C) as a transition layer with a boosted photocatalytic activity up to 7 times. It was revealed that the activation energy of the Pt co-catalyst for water reduction was lowered in the presence of N-C, and the intimate interaction between CN and N-C, ascribing to the similar elemental composition and crystal structure, promoted the efficient separation and migration of charge carriers. This study may open a new avenue to develop CN-based photocatalysts for solar fuel conversion with even higher activity by photocatalyst/co-catalyst interface engineering.