Production of mesoporous carbon nitrides and their photocatalytic properties for degradation of organic pollutants

Degradation of organic pollutants is an important research area to solve environmental issues. Metal-free carbon nitride (C3N4) materials have a great potential as cost-effective and environment-friendly photocatalysts for this purpose. Herein, we develop a route to produce mesoporous C3N4 materials and investigate their photocatalytic performance for degrading rhodamine B (RhB). The mesoporous materials are generated through the self-assembly of melamine and cyanuric acid during high-temperature pyrolysis. The materials show excellent photocatalytic activities for RhB degradation under the irradiation of visible light. They possess higher surface areas, better adsorption ability of visible light and longer lifetimes of the photoexcited electrons than common C3N4 sample. These aspects are the reasons for the excellent photocatalytic performance.

Automated summary

Degradation of organic pollutants is an important research area to solve environmental issues. Metal-free carbon nitride (C3N4) materials have a great potential as cost-effective and environment-friendly photocatalysts for this purpose. In this study, mesoporous C3N4 materials were developed through self-assembly and showed excellent photocatalytic activities for degrading rhodamine B under visible light irradiation. These materials exhibited higher surface areas, better adsorption ability of visible light, and longer lifetimes of the photoexcited electrons compared to common C3N4 samples, which contribute to their outstanding photocatalytic performance.