Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

Graphitic Carbon Nitride Nanosheets Decorated Zinc-Cadmium Sulfide Type-II Heterojunction for Photocatalytic Hydrogen Production

Ammar Bin Yousaf
† ,
Muhammad Imran
† ORCID logo ,
Muhammad Farooq
,
Samaira Kausar
,
Samina Yasmeen
,
Peter Kasak
* ORCID logo
†
These authors contributed equally
Version 1 : Received: 13 August 2023 / Approved: 14 August 2023 / Online: 14 August 2023 (04:32:05 CEST)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Yousaf, A.B.; Imran, M.; Farooq, M.; Kausar, S.; Yasmeen, S.; Kasak, P. Graphitic Carbon Nitride Nanosheets Decorated with Zinc-Cadmium Sulfide for Type-II Heterojunctions for Photocatalytic Hydrogen Production. Nanomaterials 2023, 13, 2609. Yousaf, A.B.; Imran, M.; Farooq, M.; Kausar, S.; Yasmeen, S.; Kasak, P. Graphitic Carbon Nitride Nanosheets Decorated with Zinc-Cadmium Sulfide for Type-II Heterojunctions for Photocatalytic Hydrogen Production. Nanomaterials 2023, 13, 2609.

Abstract

Herein, we have fabricated graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) nanosheets with embedded ZnCdS nanoparticles to form a type II heterojunction using a facile synthesis approach and used for photocatalytic H2 production. The morphologies, chemical structure and optical properties of the obtained g-C3N4‒ZnCdS samples were characterized by a battery of techniques such as, TEM, XRD, XPS and UV-Vis DRS. The as-synthesized g-C3N4‒ZnCdS, photocatalyst exhibits the highest hydrogen production rate of 108.9 μmol·g-1·h-1 compared to individual components (g-C3N4: 13.5 μmol·g-1·h-1, ZnCdS: 45.3 μmol·g-1·h-1). The improvement of its photocatalytic activity is mainly attributed to the heterojunction formation and resulting synergistic effect, which provide more channels for charge carrier migration and reduce the recombination of photogenerated electrons and holes. Meanwhile, the g-C3N4‒ZnCdS heterojunction catalyst also showed higher stability over a number of repeated cycles. Our work sheds insight of using g-C3N4 and metal sulfide combination to develop low-cost, efficient, visible-light active hydrogen production photocatalysts.

Keywords

Heterojunction; photocatalytic H2 production; carbon nitride; nanosheets; ZnCdS

Subject

Chemistry and Materials Science, Nanotechnology

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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