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

Mohamed Tarek Ahmed; Hairus Abdullah; Dong-Hau Kuo

doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.135910

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

Chemosphere. 2022 Nov;307(Pt 2):135910. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.135910. Epub 2022 Aug 5.

Authors

Mohamed Tarek Ahmed¹, Hairus Abdullah², Dong-Hau Kuo³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, No.43, Sec. 4, Keelung Road, Taipei, 10607, Taiwan.
² Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, No.43, Sec. 4, Keelung Road, Taipei, 10607, Taiwan; Department of Industrial Engineering, Universitas Prima Indonesia, Medan, Indonesia. Electronic address: hairus@mail.ntust.edu.tw.
³ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, No.43, Sec. 4, Keelung Road, Taipei, 10607, Taiwan; Graduate Institute of Energy and Sustainability Technology, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, No.43, Sec. 4, Keelung Road, Taipei 10607, Taiwan. Electronic address: dhkuo@mail.ntust.edu.tw.

PMID: 35940410
DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.135910

Abstract

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.

Keywords: Dy-oxide; H(2)O(2); Nitrogen-deficiency; ORR; Photocatalysis.