In-plane implanting carbon rings into carbon nitride to intrigue nonradical photodegradation
Yao Yu, Yantao Wang, Teng Lü, Jinqiang Zhang, Kunsheng Hu, Huayang Zhang, Tara L. Pukala, Yun Liu, Xiaoguang Duan, Shaobin Wang
Abstract
Photocatalysis has emerged as a prevailing and clean technology for water purification. In this work, we developed a facile approach for fabricating in-plane carbon/carbon nitride heterojunctions (CN-PDs) that induced 100% photodegradation of naproxen under visible light irradiation in a nonradical manner. Experimental and simulation results collectively revealed that the incorporated carbon rings in carbon nitride (CN) significantly accelerate the charge dynamics of excitons, leading to a higher concentration of hot carriers. In addition, a lower intersystem crossing energy barrier was observed for the unique nanostructure compared to pristine CN, enabling an efficient energy-transfer-mediated oxygen activation to selectively generate singlet oxygen. An optimized composition of carbon rings (CN-PDs0.1) enhanced the photodegradation of naproxen compared to CN. This study established the structure-activity relationships in selective photooxidation. The findings will benefit advanced design of high-performance nonmetal photocatalysts for organic wastewater treatment.