Facile hydrothermal synthesis and photocatalytic properties of g-C3N4/Cu3TeO6 heterostructures

Abstract

Abstract

In this work, we have developed, for the first time, heterostructures based on Cu3TeO6 (CTO) with a strong interaction with a well-studied g-C3N4 (GCN) semiconductor. This has been carried out to mitigate the drawbacks of CTO for its application as photocatalyst in H2 production. In this sense, the resulting heterostructure presented higher activity than the pure CTO and GCN (113, 85, and 42 µmolH2/mg, respectively). The methodology employed to synthesise the heterostructure was a hydrothermal synthesis on the surface of GCN to ensure a strong interaction between both materials by growing the CTO crystal in presence of GCN. The physicochemical characterisation of the materials by XRD TG, SEM, TEM, and FTIR revealed that the synthesis was successfully developed and that Cu3TeO6 grew on the g-C3N4 surface. Indeed, this novel synthesis of the heterostructure based on CTO has huge interest for its application in H2 production due to the redox capability of the materials, observed by UPS and UV–Vis spectroscopies. The enhancement of the catalytic activity of the heterostructure with respect to the pristine materials was associate to the strong interaction between both components, the catalytic effect of Cu species, and the improved charge transfer. Indeed, a lower e− − h+ pair recombination rate was observed by steady PL analysis with respect to the pristine GCN material. These results indicate that it is possible to synthesise heterostructures based on metal tellurates with improved catalytic activity of the mixture with respect to the pristine material in a relevant energy application such as H2 production.