Highly efficient photocatalytic H2O2 generation over dysprosium oxide-integrated g-C3N4 nanosheets with nitrogen deficiency

The increasing global crisis considers energy as the fundamental cause to conduct extensive research work to find clean alternative methods with high capabilities such as H2O2 synthesis. Photocatalytic H2O2 production can tackle this growing issue by maintaining environmental remediation. In this work, dysprosium oxide (Dy-oxide)-integrated g-C3N4 has been synthesized and characterized with XRD, SEM, TEM, XPS, EPR, DRS, PL, and electrochemical analyses. Simulated solar light irradiation implemented photocatalytic H2O2 production using the as-prepared catalysts. The facile preparation technique in the Ar atmosphere raises more N deficiency in the g-C3N4 matrix. N-deficient g-C3N4 nanosheets with an exceptionally high photocatalytic performance can be further enhanced by integrating well-dispersed Dysprosium oxide (Dy2O3) particles onto g-C3N4. This study reports bandgap narrowing and various surface defects on g-C3N4 with trace amounts of Dy2O3. Undoped g-C3N4 (Dy0) yielded 20.27 mM⋅g-1⋅h-1, while the optimized photocatalyst Dy15 showed high performance of H2O2 production up to 48.36 mM⋅g-1⋅h-1. It is approximately 2.4 times higher than the pristine g-C3N4. Dy15 proves the positive impact of Dy-oxide on enhancing the N-deficient g-C3N4 performance towards photocatalytic H2O2 production. This work highlights the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) through a mixed pathway of well-known two-step one-electron and one-step two-electron processes in H2O2 generation.