title: Facile fabrication of novel porous graphitic carbon nitride/copper sulfide nanocomposites with enhanced visible light driven photocatalytic performance.
abstract: In this work, a novel organic-inorganic heterostructured photocatalyst: porous graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) hybrid with copper sulfide (CuS) had been synthesized via a precipitation-deposition method at low temperature for the first time. UV-vis spectroscopy revealed the porous g-C3N4/CuS nanocomposites showed a strong and broad visible light absorption. Furthermore, the g-C3N4/CuS nanocomposites showed higher photocatalytic activity in the photodegradation of various organic dyes than that of pure g-C3N4 and CuS, and the selected sample of g-C3N4/CuS-2 exhibited the best photocatalytic activity under visible light. The good photocatalytic activity could be ascribed to the matching of the g-C3N4 and CuS band gap energies. Besides, photoluminescent spectra and photoelectrochemical measurements also proved that the CuS/g-C3N4 could greatly enhance the charge generation and suppress the charge recombination of photogenerated carriers. According to the experimental result, a possible photocatalytic mechanism has been proposed. Due to the high stability, the porous g-C3N4/CuS could be applied in the field of environmental remediation. Our work highlights that coupling semiconductors with well-matched band energies provides a facile way to improve the photocatalytic activity.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory for Powder Metallurgy, Central South University, Changsha 410083, PR China.
authors.forename: Xi
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory for Powder Metallurgy, Central South University, Changsha 410083, PR China.
authors.forename: Huankun
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory for Powder Metallurgy, Central South University, Changsha 410083, PR China.
authors.forename: Yuxin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory for Powder Metallurgy, Central South University, Changsha 410083, PR China.
authors.forename: Hanshuo
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory for Powder Metallurgy, Central South University, Changsha 410083, PR China.
authors.forename: Laidi
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory for Powder Metallurgy, Central South University, Changsha 410083, PR China.
authors.forename: Pengfei
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Tan
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory for Powder Metallurgy, Central South University, Changsha 410083, PR China. Electronic address: jun.pan@csu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pan
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory for Powder Metallurgy, Central South University, Changsha 410083, PR China.
authors.forename: Xiang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Xiong
keywords: CuS; Heterojunction; Porous g-C(3)N(4)/CuS nanocomposite; Semiconductor photocatalyst; g-C(3)N(4)