ABSTRACT Polymeric carbon nitride (PCN) shows favorable visible light absorption, stability, and environmental benignity with facile synthesis, making it a widely studied semiconductor catalyst. However, its photocatalytic hydrogen evolution performance is limited, which is due to its poor electron‐hole pair separation and transfer efficiency. To solve these problems, triphenylphosphine was used as the phosphorus source and the P atoms were successfully introduced into the PCN skeleton. The use of this source was milder than using an inorganic phosphorus source and did not significantly change the crystalline structure of PCN. The structure of the P‐doped PCN catalyst and the form in which the P atoms were present in the PCN backbone were characterized by X‐ray diffraction (XRD), X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and 31 P solid‐state nuclear magnetic resonance (SSNMR). In addition, a series of photoelectronic performance analyses showed that the introduction of P atoms significantly changed the electronic properties of PCN and inhibited the recombination of photogenerated charges and holes. This doping improved the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution performance, and the activity became almost 13 times that of nondoped PCN. This study presented a simple, safe, and effective modification of PCN, which is instructive for the development of low‐cost and simple‐to‐synthesize photocatalysts.
Liu et al. (Fri,) studied this question.