Point-to-face contact heterojunctions: Interfacial design of 0D nanomaterials on 2D g-C3N4 towards photocatalytic energy applications

Green energy generation is an indispensable task to concurrently resolve fossil fuel depletion and environmental issues to align with the global goals of achieving carbon neutrality. Photocatalysis, a process that transforms solar energy into clean fuels through a photocatalyst, represents a felicitous direction toward sustainability. Eco-rich metal-free graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) is profiled as an attractive photocatalyst due to its fascinating properties, including excellent chemical and thermal stability, moderate band gap, visible light-active nature, and ease of fabrication. Nonetheless, the shortcomings of g-C3N4 include fast charge recombination and limited surface-active sites, which adversely affect photocatalytic reactions. Among the modification strategies, point-to-face contact engineering of 2D g-C3N4 with 0D nanomaterials represents an innovative and promising synergy owing to several intriguing attributes such as the high specific surface area, short effective charge-transfer pathways, and quantum confinement effects. This review introduces recent advances achieved in experimental and computational studies on the interfacial design of 0D nanostructures on 2D g-C3N4 in the construction of point-to-face heterojunction interfaces. Notably, 0D materials such as metals, metal oxides, metal sulfides, metal selenides, metal phosphides, and nonmetals on g-C3N4 with different charge-transfer mechanisms are systematically discussed along with controllable synthesis strategies. The applications of 0D/2D g-C3N4-based photocatalysts are focused on solar-to-energy conversion via the hydrogen evolution reaction, the CO2 reduction reaction, and the N-2 reduction reaction to evaluate the photocatalyst activity and elucidate reaction pathways. Finally, future perspectives for developing high-efficiency 0D/2D photocatalysts are proposed to explore potential emerging carbon nitride allotropes, large-scale production, machine learning integration, and multidisciplinary advances for technological breakthroughs.

Automated summary

This article introduces the recent advances in experimental and computational studies on the interfacial design of 0D nanostructures on 2D graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4). By engineering point-to-face contact between 2D g-C3N4 and 0D nanomaterials, heterojunction interfaces can be formed, which is beneficial for photocatalytic reactions. Different types of 0D nanostructures and synthesis strategies for photocatalytic applications are discussed.