Critical role of hydrogen bonding between microcrystalline cellulose and g-C3N4 enables highly efficient photocatalysis

Developing a highly efficient photocatalyst for energy and environmental applications is urgently required. Herein, graphitic carbon nitride (CN) coupled with microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) (denoted as MCC-X/CN) shows excellent photocatalytic performance for tetracycline (TC) degradation and H-2 evolution. And the optimized MCC-0.05/CN shows an improved TC degradation rate (K-app = 0.019 min(-1)) and H-2 evolution rate (642.71 mu mol g(-1) h(-1)), which are 1.9 and 22 times higher than those of pure CN, respectively. This improvement primarily results from hydrogen bonding (H-bonding) between CN and MCC, which enables excellent charge separation and migration, leading to the outstanding photoelectrochemical properties of MCC-0.05/CN.

Automated summary

Graphitic carbon nitride (CN) coupled with microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) (MCC-X/CN) exhibits excellent photocatalytic performance for tetracycline (TC) degradation and H-2 evolution. The optimized MCC-0.05/CN shows significantly improved TC degradation rate and H-2 evolution rate compared to pure CN. This improvement is primarily attributed to the hydrogen bonding (H-bonding) between CN and MCC, enabling excellent charge separation and migration.