H+CO Synergistic Plasma Positioning Carboxyl Defects in g-CN with Engineered Electronic Structure and Active Sites for Efficient Photocatalytic H Evolution.

Defective functional-group-endowed polymer semiconductors, which have unique photoelectric properties and rapid carrier separation properties, are an emerging type of high-performance photocatalyst for various energy and environmental applications. However, traditional oxidation etching chemical methods struggle to introduce defects or produce special functional group structures gently and controllably, which limits the implementation and application of the defective functional group modification strategy. Here, with the surface carboxyl modification of graphitic carbon nitride (g-CN) photocatalyst as an example, we show for the first time the feasibility and precise modification potential of the non-thermal plasma method.