Photocatalytic Seawater Splitting for Hydrogen Evolution by Graphitic Carbon Nitride-based Photocatalysts

The world's reliance on fossil fuels contributes to pollution, and hydrogen is a promising future fuel that could help mitigate this problem. Solar energy can be used to drive photocatalytic water splitting, which produces green hydrogen. GCN (graphitic carbon nitride) is an environmentally friendly, metal-free, semiconducting material with huge potential to be an effective photocatalyst. The pristine GCN was modified in this study to improve its photocatalytic activity towards hydrogen evolution from seawater splitting. The modification strategies employed in this work include creating amorphous carbon nitride, coupling carbon nitride with photosensitizing molecules (zinc phthalocyanine), doping oxygen into carbon nitride (OCN), and developing a Z-scheme photocatalytic system comprising BIVO4-X-IO3–/I–OCN.