Molecular engineering of polymeric carbon nitride for highly efficient photocatalytic oxytetracycline degradation and H2O2 production

Abstract Developing highly efficient photocatalysts for refractory pollutants degradation and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) production is an ideal strategy to tackle environmental pollution and energy crisis. Herein, we synthesize a novel 2-hydroxy-4,6-dimethylpyrimidine (HDMP) grafted polymeric carbon nitride (CN) photocatalyst (ACN) by a facile in situ keto-enol cyclization method for addressing these issues. The photogenerated electrons and holes are migrated to HDMP and heptazine moiety, respectively. And the average decay lifetime of photogenerated charges of CN and ACN-10 is increased form (222 ± 23) to (289 ± 38) ps. Benefiting from the controllable electronic migration and accelerated intramolecular charge separation, the ACN photocatalyst exhibits a superior visible-light-driven photocatalytic activity for oxytetracycline degradation and H2O2 production. This work makes an insight into the intramolecular charge dynamics in CN, and presents a promising approach to the oxytetracycline degradation and H2O2 production.