Facile in-situ synthesis of 2D/3D g-C3N4/Cu2O heterojunction for high-performance photocatalytic dye degradation

Constructing heterojunction is a promising method to enhance visible-light utility and promote photogenerated e(-)-h(+) pairs separation of g-C3N4. Herein, the present work reported a g-C3N4/Cu2O heterojunction by a facile in situ synthetic strategy. The structure, morphology, optical, electrochemical and photocatalytic properties were investigated. The results showed the combination of g-C3N4 nanosheets and Cu2O nanospheres resulted in the close contact interface and wide visible-light response range, and fast separation of the photo-generated e(-)-h(+) pairs. The pristine g-C3N4 showed weak photocatalytic performance towards methyl orange (MO) under visible-light irradiation, compared with pristine g-C3N4, the photocatalytic degradation rate of optimized g-C3N4/Cu2O composite demonstrates the substantially enhanced photocatalytic activity, which showed no obvious loss after five repeated use. The enhanced performance was ascribed to the synergistic effect of good visible-light harvesting and enhanced separation rate of the charge carriers.