LAUSR

Abstract The photocatalytic hydrogen generation, which makes use of metal-free and low-cost graphite carbon nitride as a photocatalyst, is termed as a pivotal and viable strategy for solving the ecological and energy issues. Nevertheless, the key impediment is the agglomeration phenomenon, as a result of the uneven heat and mass transfer during calcination, besides the low utilization rate of photogenic electron holes. In the current work, this issue was overcome by a simple one-step method of copolymerization, combining the codoping and construction of isotype heterojunction. This strategy can overcoming the incidence of agglomeration and effectively optimizing the physical and surface properties of the catalyst as well, thereby enhancing the photocatalytic performance. The changed g-C3N4 manifests the higher surface area, together with broadened the visible-light responsive, improved electron migrate potential and prolonged life time of photogenerated carriers. In addition, these effectively-amended g-C3N4 nanosheets have an improved hydrogen evolution rate, which is 7.47 times that of SCN-1.