Fluorine Modified Boron Carbon Nitride Semiconductors for Improved Photocatalytic CO2 Reduction under Visible Light

Photocatalytic conversion of CO2 to usable fuel precursors is one of the most important renewable paths to mitigate energy shortages and greenhouse gas emissions. Photocatalysts for this transformation are typically based on precious metals to obtain high yield and selectivity. Currently, metal-free graphitic conjugated materials (such as g-C3N4, ternary boron carbon nitride) are promising and emerging photocatalysts to offset the above issues. Here we further modulated photocatalytic performance of ternary boron carbon nitride (BCN) by introducing fluorine into its graphitic-like framework. As a result, the fluorination of the BCN productively increases the CO yield by three times under visible light. It was found that fluorine doping can remarkably accelerate migration-separation efficiency of photogenerated charge carriers, prolong lifetime of the excited state and optimize electronic properties of BCN.