Fabricating Amorphous g-CN/ZrO Photocatalysts by One-Step Pyrolysis for Solar-Driven Ambient Ammonia Synthesis.

Solar-driven nitrogen fixation remains a significant challenge. Graphitic carbon nitride (g-CN) is considered as a promising visible light photocatalyst. However, the photocatalytic performance of g-CN is unsatisfactory because of the random transfer of charge carriers in the plane and the low activation efficiency of the reactants. Herein, amorphous ZrO was used as a robust cocatalyst of g-CN to increase the NH production activity. The g-CN/ZrO lamellar composites were constructed by a simple one-step pyrolysis of the deep eutectic solvent ZrOCl·8HO/urea. The optimum NH yield could reach as high as 1446 μmol·L·h at 30 wt % ZrO in the g-CN/ZrO composites, with an apparent quantum efficiency over 2.14% at 400 nm. It is 7.9 times that of pristine g-CN and 27.5 times that of ZrO. The introduction of amorphous ZrO restrained the hydrogen generation, and the amorphous ZrO and g-CN together contribute to the rapid photoproduced electron transfer of less electron-hole pair recombination.