Boosting the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution activity of g-C3N4 nanosheets by Cu2(OH)2CO3modification and dye-sensitization

Considering the cleanness and renewability of the solar H-2-production system, photocatalytic H-2-production from water splitting with the assistance of nonprecious and Earth-abundant cocatalysts has become a research hotspot. Herein, robust Cu-2(OH)(2)CO3 nanoparticles were successfully anchored onto the surface of g-C3N4 nanosheets through a mild precipitation route in which Cu-2(OH)(2)CO3 serves as an effectively nonprecious metal-based cocatalyst for boosting hydrogen generation. The results demonstrated that the as-prepared hybrid Cu-2(OH)(2)CO3/g-C3N4 nanocomposite photocatalyst with an optimum 3 wt% loading amount of Cu-2(OH)(2)CO3 exhibited a noticeable improvement of photocatalytic H-2-evolution performance under visible light illumination. The boosted H-2-evolution activity was associated with the formation of active Cu species during the photocatalytic process, which could promote the interfacial charge separation and simultaneously reduce the overpotential of hydrogen generation, thus boosting the H-2-evolution activity over the hybrid photocatalyst. More importantly, by introducing an optimum amount of fluorescein dye molecules into the photocatalytic system, the maximum photocatalytic H-2-production rate over the binary Cu-2(OH)(2)CO3/g-C3N4 photocatalyst could be further improved to be 22.6 mu mol h(-1), 19.3 and 3.8 times higher than those of pristine g-C3N4 and the corresponding binary catalyst without the assistance of fluorescein. These results could be ascribed to the positively cooperative effects of Cu-2(OH)(2)CO3, fluorescein dye molecules and g-C3N4, which lead to the increasing light absorption ability, fast charge mobility and efficient charge separation of the fluorescein-sensitized Cu-2(OH)(2)CO3/g-C3N4 hybrid photocatalyst, thus ultimately boosting the photocatalytic H-2-production activity. This study may pave a new way for engineering a low-cost, high-efficiency, noble-metal-free and dye-sensitized cocatalyst/ semiconductor system for solar-to-fuel conversion.