Enhanced hydrogen production by the protonated, sulfur doped and Pt-loaded g-C3N4 nanolayers

Chemically modified graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) nanolayers have been developed with simultaneous modifications through protonation, sulfur-doping and Pt-loading. The obtained materials have been extensively studied for their structural, morphological, optical, surface area, photocurrent density, impedance and photocatalytic hydrogen production properties under solar light irradiations. The synergistic effect of these modifications is found to increase their photocatalytic efficiencies into many folds. From the obtained results, the mechanism of the observed efficiency can be proposed as follows; (i) the protonation led to a stronger exfoliation of g-C3N4 from its bulk-structure to nanolayers, while (ii) the sulfur doping reduces the band gap energy through altering their band edge positions and (iii) the Pt-loading enhances the charge separation, which facilitated more number of electrons to reduce H+ ions into H-2 molecules. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.