Promoting photocatalytic hydrogen evolution rates in layered graphitic carbon nitride through integrated non-noble CoB co-catalyst
Graphitic carbon nitride; Hydrogen evolution reaction; Non-noble co-catalyst; Photocatalysis; Transition-metal boride
Despite being one of the most widely studied metal-free semiconductors, graphitic carbon-nitride (gC3N4) shows meaningful photocatalytic activities only when loaded with noble-metal co-catalysts. The present work reports an alternative to noble metals in the form of cobalt boride (CoB) co-catalyst that can be easily integrated within the gC3N4 framework with facile fabrication strategies. The optimized CoB-gC3N4 composite showed ?60 times higher hydrogen generation rate compared to bare gC3N4 nanosheets, with good stability. Detailed morphological, structural, chemical, electrochemical and spectroscopic investigations revealed the key aspects of CoB-gC3N4 composite that unanimously led to higher photocatalytic activity. Computational investigations not only corroborated the experimental results but also established that the surface Co and B sites in CoB provided the most energetically favoured sites for hydrogen evolution reaction. Based on the experimental and computational investigations, a generic reaction mechanism was formulated that will prove as a guiding light for future studies on similar photocatalytic systems. 2024 The Authors
Gupta S.; Prapaitrakool C.; Bhagat B.R.; Yeh C.-L.; Dashora A.; Sirisuk A.; Patel N.; Daneu N.; Kocjan A.; Spreitzer M.; Wu J.C.S.; Krmanc M.M.
International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, Vol-60, pp. 1288-1298.
All Open Access; Hybrid Gold Open Access
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2024.02.261 https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85186410539&doi=10.1016%2fj.ijhydene.2024.02.261&partnerID=40&md5=971f8fc30b9d1e1adba1e48aeb512919
Gupta S., Advanced Materials Department, Joef Stefan Institute, Jamova 39, Ljubljana, 1000, Slovenia; Prapaitrakool C., Department of Chemical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, 10617, Taiwan, Center of Excellence on Catalysis and Catalytic Reaction Engineering and Bio-Circular-Green-economy Technology & Engineering Center, Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, 10330, Thailand; Bhagat B.R., Physics Department, Faculty of Science, The M.S. University of Baroda, Vadodara, 390002, India; Yeh C.-L., Department of Chemical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, 10617, Taiwan; Dashora A., Physics Department, Faculty of Science, The M.S. University of Baroda, Vadodara, 390002, India; Sirisuk A., Center of Excellence on Catalysis and Catalytic Reaction Engineering and Bio-Circular-Green-economy Technology & Engineering Center, Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, 10330, Thailand; Patel N., Department of Physics and Electronics, Christ University, Bengaluru, 560029, India; Daneu N., Advanced Materials Department, Joef Stefan Institute, Jamova 39, Ljubljana, 1000, Slovenia; Kocjan A., Department for Nanostructured Materials, Joef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia; Spreitzer M., Advanced Materials Department, Joef Stefan Institute, Jamova 39, Ljubljana, 1000, Slovenia; Wu J.C.S., Department of Chemical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, 10617, Taiwan; Krmanc M.M., Advanced Materials Department, Joef Stefan Institute, Jamova 39, Ljubljana, 1000, Slovenia