Proceedings of MATSUS Fall 2024 Conference (MATSUSFall24)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29363/nanoge.matsusfall.2024.213
Publication date: 28th August 2024
Polymeric carbon nitride (CN) materials have emerged as metal-free, low-cost, and environmentally friendly semiconductors in various applications, including photoelectrodes in photoelectrochemical water-splitting. Unlike CN powder, which is used as a dispersed photocatalyst, for applications such as photoelectrochemical cells, light-emitting diodes, and solar cells, the deposition of the CN on a conductive substrate is required. The deposition of CN layers on different substrates can be divided into two main categories: 1) ex-situ deposition of prepared CN powder and 2) in-situ growth of a CN layer directly on the substrate. Generally, the in-situ methods comprise two steps: the first one is the deposition or growth of nitrogen-rich monomers (such as melamine, urea, thiourea, dicyanamide, etc.), forming a film of the monomers on the substrate. The following step is the calcination process, in which these monomers polymerize, forming the final CN electrode. Most in situ preparation techniques differ in the deposition or growth method of the monomers' film but maintain a similar 'standard' calcination process of slowly heating this film to 500–550 °C and keeping the final temperature for several hours, usually under an inert atmosphere. A significant drawback of a long heating process is the possible sublimation and decomposition of the CN monomers and final layer, which may lead to a less uniform film. In addition, from an economical point of view, a long calcination process at a high temperature consumes much energy.
In this talk, I will introduce a facile, scalable, energy-saving, and reproducible synthesis of CN layers on conductive substrates using a fast heating method. In this method, the predesigned CN monomer films are subjected for several minutes (5-20 min) to higher temperatures than the 'standard' calcination procedure (650–680 °C). The high-temperature process enables fast condensation of the monomers, and negligible degradation is obtained thanks to the short time at the target temperature. As a result, the formation of a uniform CN layer with excellent contact with the substrate and good activity as a photoanode in PEC is achieved. The optimal CN photoanode reaches photocurrent densities of ~200 μA cm−2 at 1.23 vs. RHE in neutral and acidic solutions and 120 μA cm−2 in a basic solution.[1]
This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant Agreement No. 849068). A.T. thanks KKL-JNF for financial support.
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