Defect engineered mesoporous graphitic carbon nitride modified with AgPd nanoparticles for enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen evolution from formic acid

Hydrogen energy, as an ideal renewable resource and green energy replacement, has attracted growing attention. However, constructing highly active and stable catalysts for hydrogen evolution from Formic acid (FA) is still a challenging issue for development of renewable hydrogen energy. Herein, we develop a facile defect engineering strategy to construct N-deficient ordered mesoporous graphitic carbon nitride coupled with AgPd nanoparticles (denoted as AgPd/N-ompg-C3N4). Impressively, the as-prepared Ag0.1Pd0.9/N-ompg-C3N4 catalyst exhibits remarkable activity with the Turnover frequency (TOF) value of 1588.2 h-1 and robust stability with only a slight decrease in activity after ten cycles. Such markedly enhanced catalytic performance of Ag0.1Pd0.9/N-ompgC3N4 is mainly attributed to the unique structure of N-ompg-C3N4 with higher surface area and abundant surface defects, the strong metal - support interaction between AgPd and N-ompg-C3N4, and charge transfer from Pd to Ag. This study provides a novel and efficient strategy for designing efficient catalysts to drive the hydrogen evolution from FA.

Automated summary

The study presents a novel defect engineering strategy to construct an AgPd nanoparticle-coupled N-deficient ordered mesoporous graphitic carbon nitride catalyst, which exhibits remarkable activity and stability for hydrogen evolution from Formic acid. The enhanced catalytic performance is mainly attributed to the unique structure of the catalyst, the strong metal-support interaction, and charge transfer mechanisms. This provides a new and efficient strategy for designing catalysts for renewable hydrogen energy production.