Artificial photosynthetic hydrogen evolution over g-C3N4 nanosheets coupled with cobaloxime

We report an economic and noble-metal-free artificial photosynthetic system, consisting of g-C3N4 as a photosensitizer and a photocatalyst, and cobaloxime as a co-catalyst, for H2 generation. This system allows for effective electron transfer from excited g-C3N4 to Co(III)(dmgH)2pyCl to generate reduced cobaloxime intermediate species for efficient H2 evolution. Transient fluorescence studies reveal that the presence of cobaloxime and TEOA promotes the population of excited electrons to transfer from g-C3N4, which is responsible for the high photocatalytic activity of this g-C3N4-cobaloxime conjugation system.