WO 3 /g-C 3 N 4 composites: one-pot preparation and enhanced photocatalytic H 2 production under visible-light irradiation

A series of WO 3 /g-C 3 N 4 composites with different WO 3 contents were prepared via a facile one-pot pyrolysis method, and showed notably enhanced visible-light-driven photocatalytic H 2 -evolution activities, with the highest rate of 400 μ mol h −1 g cat −1 that was 15.0 times of that for pristine g-C 3 N 4 . Contents and sizes of WO 3 crystallites in the composites were easily adjusted by changing the molar ratios of (NH 4 ) 2 WS 4 to C 3 H 6 N 6 in the feed reagents, thereby successfully optimizing the Z-scheme system constructed by WO 3 and g-C 3 N 4 and thus effectively reducing the recombination of photogenerated charge carriers in g-C 3 N 4 . Moreover, pore volumes and surface areas of the composites were gradually enlarged by introducing WO 3 into g-C 3 N 4 via the one-pot preparation strategy, therefore promoting the redox reactions to evolve H 2 . This work presented an effective route to simultaneously optimize the phase compositions and textural structures of photocatalysts for enhanced H 2 evolution.