Promoted interfacial charge transfer by coral-like nickel diselenide for enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen evolution over carbon nitride nanosheet

Abstract Seeking an efficient and non-precious co-catalyst for g-C3N4 (CN) remains a great demanding to achieve high photocatalytic hydrogen generation performance. Herein, a composite photocatalyst with high efficiency was prepared by modifying CN with coral-like NiSe2. The optimal hydrogen evolution rate of 643.16 μmol g−1 h−1 is from NiSe2/CN-5 under visible light. Superior light absorption and interfacial charge transfer properties including suppressed photogenerated carrier recombination and efficient separation of photogenerated electron-hole pairs have been observed, which account for the enhanced photocatalytic performance of CN.