Efficient visible light photocatalytic green hydrogen production from Dy2O3 combined with nitrogen-deficient g-C3N4

The efficient construction of heterojunction photocatalysts has a crucial significance in achieving the decomposition of water for hydrogen generation. This work successfully prepared nitrogen-deficient g-C3N4 (ND-g-C3N4) and combined it with dysprosium oxide (Dy2O3) through high-temperature calcination to create a type II heterojunction photocatalyst (Dy2O3/ND-g-C3N4). Notably, under visible light, the Dy2O3/ND-g-C3N4 photocatalyst demonstrated impressive hydrogen production rates in both ethylene glycol and glucose solutions. Specifically, the photocatalyst achieved H2 generation rates of 463.256 and 510.305 μmol∙g-1∙h-1 in ethylene glycol and glucose solutions, respectively. And the quantum yield could be up to 21.76% and 23.96%, respectively. Furthermore, the photocatalytic reforming of glucose for H2 production yielded valuable intermediate products. The inclusion of an f-shell layer in the Dy2O3 lattice has a significant function in enhancing photocatalytic hydrogen production efficiency. This improvement was attributed to the ability of the f-shell layer to capture excited electrons, thereby decreasing the rate of recombination of exciton pairs.