Comparison Study of the Photoelectrochemical Activity of Carbon Nitride with Different Photoelectrode Configurations

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• 作者：Shuang Lou ; Zhixin Zhou ; Yanfei Shen ; Zongsheng Zhan ; Jianhai Wang ; Songqin Liu ; Yuanjian Zhang
• 刊名：ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：August 31, 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：8
• 期：34
• 页码：22287-22294
• 全文大小：618K
• 年卷期：0
• ISSN：1944-8252

文摘

Polymeric carbon nitride (CN) has recently emerged as a novel metal-free semiconductor due to its unique electronic structure, wide availability, and promising applications in photoelectrochemical solar energy conversion. However, few works regarding CN photoelectrode optimization such as by minimization of unwanted grain boundary effects have been reported, which would greatly influence the photoelectrochemcial conversion efficiency. Herein, three general ways of preparing CN photoelectrode are presented and compared, including drop-casting of CN particles, or further blendeding with Nafion or PEDOT–PSS as the binder. In addition, the influences of CN particle sizes (0.5, 1.1, and 3.2 μm) and the film thickness (i.e., the loading amount) to the overall photoelectrochemcial activity were also evaluated in detail. As a result, when PEDOT–PSS acted as binder, CN particles with size of 0.5 μm and an optimal loading amount (2.4 mg/cm²) were adopted; the as-prepared CN photoelectrode had much superior photoelectrochemical activity than all other counterparts. Therefore, this study would pave the way for preparing CN photoelectrode of superior quality so as to promote CN materials to be better applied in solar fuel and sensing applications.