Synthesis and Characterization of Modified Graphitic Carbon Nitride for Hydrogen Fuel Generation

A graphitic carbon-nitrate (g-C3N4) has gained tremendous interest and attracted the attention of many scholars in environmental photocatalysis, due to its outstanding properties such as low toxicity, easy synthesis, good thermal and electronic properties, suitable energy band gap. Despite all these unique properties, there are still some drawbacks that affect its photocatalytic performance for hydrogen generation through photocatalytic water-splitting processes like massive charge carriers’ recombination, low surface area and low visible light absorption. A lot of attempts have been made to address these drawbacks for better performance of g–C3N4–based material. In spite of all the attempts, there is still little research work that discusses more on the recent synthesis method and strategies to enhance the performance of g–C3N4–based photocatalyst. The study also centers on synthesis and characterization of the structure and properties of g-C3N4, and hydrogen generation using water splitting method and modified elemental doping for hydrogen generation of g–C3N4–based materials. The defect-rich and N-bridged tri–s–triazine g–C3N4–based material has been confirmed to be energetically favored relative to other phases, exhibiting extraordinary thermal stability at 700 °C. The doping and composite formation and the most common results of g-C3N4 characterization, regarding structural and morphological analysis, with better properties such as film's surface appearing wrinkled with the lighter spots confirming the presence of nitrogen, graphitic-like structure with characteristic peaks signifying crystalline lattice. The result reveals the presence of a hexagonal unit cell, which provides information on structural parameters such as the interlayer spacing and crystallite size. It also verifies the formation of g-C3N4 especially the quality, when used as a catalyst. XRD pattern in-plane heptazine units has a repeating unit of 0.6917 nm for the packing period and 0.319 nm as the interlayer stacking distance. The networks and functional groups, C–N, are confirmed by FTIR spectra measurements. Defect-rich and N-bridged tri-s-- triazine g–C3N4–based has revealed energetically favored relative to the other phases, which tend to exhibit thermal stability at 700 oC with triazine ring vibration at a wavenumber of 807 cm-1.