Halloysite-derived mesoporous g-C3N4 nanotubes for improved visible-light photocatalytic hydrogen evolution

Hydrogen evolution via visible-light photocatalytic water splitting is an ideal solution to the worldwide energy and environmental crisis, while the key challenge is to develop efficient and cheap photocatalysts. Here, mesoporous graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) nanotubes were synthesized using modified halloysite as template via a facial vapor deposition method. The halloysite-derived mesoporous g-C3N4 nanotubes exhibited an excellent photocatalytic hydrogen evolution efficiency of 633 mol g(-1) h(-1) under visible light irradiation, which was 14.3 times that of bulk g-C3N4. The improvement of photocatalytic activity mainly benefits from the enlarged specific surface area and the reduced recombination rate of photoinduced electron-hole pairs of the mesoporous g-C3N4 nanotubes. The strategy established here may be valuable for synthesizing efficient g-C3N4 photocatalysts with other tailor nanostructures utilizing diverse raw clay minerals.