In situ one-pot fabrication of MoO3−x clusters modified polymer carbon nitride for enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen evolution

Developing low-cost and high-efficient noble-metal-free cocatalysts has been a challenge to achieve economic hydrogen production. In this work, molybdenum oxides (MoO3−x) were in situ loaded on polymer carbon nitride (PCN) via a simple one-pot impregnation-calcination approach. Different from post-impregnation method, intimate coupling interface between high-dispersed ultra-small MoO3−x nanocrystal and PCN was successfully formed during the in situ growth process. The MoO3−x-PCN-X (X=1, 2, 3, 4) photocatalyst without noble platinum (Pt) finally exhibited enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen performance under visible light irradiation (λ>420 nm), with the highest hydrogen evolution rate of 15.6 µmol/h, which was more than 3 times that of bulk PCN. Detailed structure-performance revealed that such improvement in visible-light hydrogen production activity originated from the intimate interfacial interaction between high-dispersed ultra-small MoO3−x nanocrystal and polymer carbon nitride as well as efficient charge carriers transfer brought by Schottky junction formed.