3D reticulated carbon nitride materials highuniformly capture 0D black phosphorus as 3D/ 0D composites for stable and efficient photocatalytic hydrogen evolution

Black phosphorus has recently emerged as an excellent 2D semiconductor with high charge-carrier mobility and wide tunable bandgap for photocatalysis. In this research, a simple method was developed to manufacture reticulated carbon nitride materials (CN-4N). Utilizing the self-capturing property of CN-4N to capture black phosphorus quantum dots (BQ) uniformly dispersed in aqueous solution, BQ were successfully implanted in the interior surface of CN-4N to form a unique structure instead of the normal exterior surface contact pattern. The optimized CN-4N(BQ) showed good stability and achieved an excellent hydrogen production rate of 13.83mmol h(-1) g(-1), which was 3.3- and 35.5-fold higher than that of CN-4N and bulk CN (NCN), respectively. The experimental results illustrated that the greatly improved photocatalytic performance of CN-4N(BQ) was attributed to the joint actions of the abundant active sites provided by the ultra-porous structure, the excellent vis-NIR absorption capability, the spatially separated reactive sites for the redox reaction, and the greatly enhanced photoinduced electron-hole separation efficiency. This research provides novel insight for the rational fabrication of CN-based hybrids for various applications.