Addressing the synchronized impact of a novel strontium titanium over copolymerized carbon nitride for proficient solar-driven hydrogen evolution

Currently, novel technologies are highly prerequisite as an outstanding approach in the field of photocatalytic water splitting (PWS). Previous research has shown that copolymerization technology could improve the photocatalytic performance of pristine carbon nitride (CN) more efficiently. As this technology further allows the charge carrier recombination constraints, due to novel monomer-incorporated highly abundant surface-active sites of metals in polymeric carbon nitride-based heterojunction. However, in present study, a novel previously unexplored thiophenedicarboxaldehyde (TAL) conjugated, strontium-titanium (SrTiO3) induced and CN based heterojunction, i.e., SrTiO3/CN-TAL10.0, was prepared for solar-driven hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). This heterojunction effectively enables the proficient isolation of photoinduced charge carriers and enhanced the charge transport over the surface junction, by enhancing the optical absorption range and average lifetime of photogenerated charges. The incorporation of TAL within the structure of CN via copolymerization highly increases the photocatalytic activity, as well as maintaining its photostability performance. The SrTiO3 concentration and the proportion of TAL among CN can be precisely controlled to provide the optimal photocatalytic efficiency with a maximum HER of 285.9 mu mol/h under visible light (lambda = 420 nm). Based on these results, our optical analysis shows that coupling of SrTiO3 and TAL monomer in the structure of CN considerably reduce the band gap of superior sample from (3.42 to 2.66 eV), thereby, signifying the outstanding photocatalytic performance of SrTiO3/CN-TAL10.0. Thus, this study provide a new guideline in order to develop the multidimensional photocatalysts with proper functioning for sustainable energy conversion and production.

Automated summary

This study presents a novel heterojunction structure (SrTiO3/CN-TAL10.0) for enhanced photocatalytic water splitting (PWS). The incorporation of thiophenedicarboxaldehyde (TAL) through copolymerization significantly improves the photocatalytic activity of carbon nitride (CN) while maintaining its photostability performance. The optimized composition allows efficient isolation of photoinduced charge carriers and enhanced charge transport, resulting in a remarkable increase in overall photocatalytic efficiency.