Visible light production of hydrogen from glycerol over Cu2O-gC3N4 nanocomposites with enhanced photocatalytic efficiency

Abstract

In this work, we investigate nanostructured Cu2O-gC3N4 composites with diverse Cu2O addition (0.5–3.0 mol %) prepared by ultrasonication-mixture of mesoporous Cu2O and g-C3N4 prepared individually from soft and hard-template sol–gel, respectively. The efficiency of the Cu2O-gC3N4 nanocomposites depends on the Cu2O/gC3N4 ratio because it controls the heterojunctions development between them. The synergistic influence amid Cu2O and g-C3N4 in the nanostructured composites was demonstrated in the production of hydrogen under simulated light achieving a maximum efficiency at 2 mol % of Cu2O (17 and 38 times higher than on bare Cu2O and g-C3N4, respectively). Correlation between photoactivity and physicochemical characteristics of the Cu2O-g-C3N4 nanocomposites shows that the improvement in photoefficiency was related with the variances in the ability to absorb observable light and to separate the charge carriers associated to the different development of Cu2O/gC3N4 heterojunctions in the nanocomposites.

Keywords

• g-C3N4
• Cu2O
• Mesoporous
• Composites
• Photocatalyst
• Hydrogen production