A regenerative photoelectrochemical sensor based on functional porous carbon nitride for Cu2+ detection

In the work, carbon nitride with porous structure and abundant surface functional groups was successfully prepared through an alkaline hydrothermal treatment. Functional porous carbon nitride could serve as the excellent photoelectric transducer substrate and also act as the anchor site for capturing target Cu2+. As a result, a photoelectrochemical (PEC) sensor based on the functional porous carbon nitride was proposed for sensitive detection of Cu2+. Under visible light irradiation, Cu2+ -induced surface exciton trapping was appeared on the photoanode sensors, greatly suppressing the transfer of photogenerated charge, which was different from the previous PEC system. Meanwhile, the PEC sensors show satisfactory performance in the detection of Cu2+ with high sensitivity and low detection limit. More importantly, using EDTA, we realized the regeneration of photoanode sensors for probing Cu2+. This work provides a reference for development of the regenerative PEC sensor in the area of commercial determination.