Constructing a nickel complex/crystalline carbon nitride hybrid with a built-in electric field for boosting CO photoreduction.

Sluggish charge separation dynamics resulting from the amorphous structure and the lack of driving force for graphitic carbon nitride (GCN) limits its highly effective CO photoreduction performance. Herein, a built-in electric field (BEF) was constructed for a well-designed CCN/Ni hybrid composed of crystalline carbon nitride (CCN) and a metal complex, 2,2'-bipyridine-4,4'-dicarboxylic acid NiBr (dcabpyNiBr), to steer charge carrier separation and migration. The CCN/Ni hybrid was synthesized a solution-dispersion and molten-salt two-step approach, displaying an improved CO photoreduction to CO rate of 8.