Bimetallic synergetic regulating effect on electronic structure in cobalt/vanadium co-doped carbon nitride for boosting photocatalytic performance

The photocatalytic activity of bimetallic co-doped g-C3N4 can be boosted dramatically, whereas the enhanced mechanisms essentially have been rarely revealed. Here, the prepared Co/V co-doped g-C3N4 significantly enhances the photocatalytic activity. The degradation rate constant and TOC removal efficiency of TC−HCl in 120 min over the Co/V-g-C3N4-2 sample run up to 4.00 and 2.45 times as much as that of g-C3N4, respectively. The outstanding photocatalytic performance is attributed to the improved charge separation efficiency and visible-light harvest ability. The density functional theory (DFT) investigations reveal the incorporation of Co/V into g-C3N4 can induce the bimetallic synergetic regulating effect on electronic structure, which results in improving the physical, optical and photoelectrochemical properties. Moreover, the significant degradation intermediates, pathway and mechanism of TC−HCl, and charge transfer behaviors are also discussed in depth. This work provides a meritorious instance to design and synthesize new bimetallic co-doped g-C3N4 materials in the photocatalytic application field.