Molecular engineering of carbon nitride towards photocatalytic H2 evolution and dye degradation

Abstract The development of superior heterogeneous catalyst for hydrogen (H2) evolution is a significant feature and challenging for determining the energy and environmental crises. However, the dumping of numerous lethal colorants (dye) as of textile manufacturing has fascinated widespread devotion-aimed water pollution anticipation and treatment. In this regard, a photocatalytic H2 evolution by visible light using low-dimensional semiconducting materials having pollutant degradable capacity for Rhodamine B dyes (RhB) has been anticipated as a route towards environmental aspect. Here we fabricated the incorporation of organic electron-rich heterocyclic monomer 2,6-dimethylmorpholine (MP), inside electron-poor graphitic carbon nitride (g-CN) semiconductor by solid-state co-polymerization. The supremacy of copolymerization process was successfully examined via absorbent, calculated band gap, and migration of electrons on the photocatalytic performance of as-constructed CN-MP copolymer. The density functional theory (DFT) calculation provides extra support as evident for the successful integration of MP into the g-CN framework by this means-reduced band gap upon co-polymerization. The hydrogen evolution rate (HER) for g-CN was found as 115.2 μmol/h, whereas for CN-PM0.1 was estimated at 641.2 μmol/h (six times higher). In particular, the pseudo-order kinetic constant of CN-MP0.1 for photodegradation of RhB was two times higher than that of g-CN. Results show an important step toward tailor-designed and explain the vital role of the D-A system for the rational motifs of productive photocatalysts with effective pollutant degradable capability for future demand.