Enhanced carriers separation in novel in-plane amorphous carbon/g-CN nanosheets for photocatalytic environment remediation.

Although carbon-based materials/g-CN heterostructure with an up-down structure in space can inhibit the recombination of charge carriers, the electron transfer is still suppressed by the interlayer van der Waals force. Herein, amorphous carbon is successfully introduced into the g-CN nanosheet (CNS) by a self-conversion process to form an in-plane heterostructure of amorphous carbon/g-CN (CNSC). Kelvin probe atomic force microscopy (KPFM) and density functional theory (DFT) confirm that g-CN and amorphous carbon are in the same plane, which can generate the surface electric field of CNSC, providing a driving force for the transfer of electrons from g-CN to amorphous carbon. Meanwhile, the sp-hybridized π conjugation bond of amorphous carbon can rapidly capture and store photogenerated electrons, inhibiting charge carrier recombination and thus generating more electrons to facilitate the yield of hydroxyl radicals. The photocatalytic activity of CNSC for the degradation of tetracycline and rhodamine B is 2.7 times and 4.8 times higher than that of CNS, respectively, due to the efficient interface charge separation. This work is expected to provide a new idea for the combination of carbon materials and g-CN.