Ascorbic acid-assisted hydrothermal route to create mesopores in polymeric carbon nitride for increased photocatalytic hydrogen generation

The facile synthesis of mesoporous polymeric carbon nitride (PCN) can enlarge the surface area and provide mass transport channels, which thus potentially boosts its photocatalytic H2 generation. However, the formation of mesopores in PCN are mainly relying on the hard and soft templates with tedious operations, and it remains a grand challenge in preparing mesoporous PCN without the assistance of templates. Herein we report on an ascorbic acid-assisted hydrothermal route to effectively create the mesoporous in bulk PCN. The mesopores thus formed a typical IV isotherm with an H3 hysteresis loop, and have a pore size distribution of ∼3.8 nm. Moreover, the crystallinity of mesoporous PCN was improved with ascorbic acid-assisted hydrothermal treatment. Meanwhile, ascorbic acid can be converted to carbon materials under hydrothermal conditions. As a result, an increased photocatalytic H2 generation was realized under visible light exposure. The highest H2 generation rate is up to 26.8 μmol h−1 for Pt/CN-A10%, near 10 times higher than that of Pt/PCN (2.7 μmol h−1). This work highlights the effectiveness of organic acid-assisted hydrothermal treatment for synthesizing mesoporous PCN for increased photocatalytic performance.