Multifunctional g-C3N4/graphene oxide wrapped sponge monoliths as highly efficient adsorbent and photocatalyst

Photocatalysis has been considered as a promising technology for environmental remediation and clean energy production. However, gas phase photocatalytic reaction suffers from the challenges of difficult dispersion and recovery. To overcome these weaknesses, we designed and successfully fabricated a new-type g-C3N4/graphene oxide (GO)-wrapped melamine sponge (MS) monolith. In this case, g-C3N4 photocatalyst is uniformly dispersed on the surface of GO, making full use of incident light and contacting with pollutant efficiently. GO acts as a bridge to connect the g-C3N4 and MS. Meanwhile, it can accelerate the separation of photogenerated electrons and holes. Moreover, MS maintains its excellent elasticity and recoverability avoiding the intricate operation in the recycling procedure, and possesses abundant porous structure contributing to the efficient transportation of gas molecules into the reaction sites. As a proof of concept, the obtained g-C3N4/GO-wrapped sponge reveals favorable adsorption capacity for both dyes and organic solvents and achieves a max NO removal ratio of 45.9% as well as high CO, CH4 and H-2 evolution of 42.9, 4.6 and 1.6 mu mol g(-1) h(-1), which is 2.9-, 6.4- and 27.1-folds enhancement over g-C3N4/GO composite. This work provides fresh insights into the development of efficient monolithic photocatalyst for a wide range of applications.