Graphitic carbon nitride "reloaded": emerging applications beyond (photo)catalysis
Despite being one of the oldest materials described in the chemical literature, graphitic carbon nitride (g-C 3 N 4 ) has just recently experienced a renaissance as a highly active photocatalyst, and the metal-free polymer was shown to be able to generate hydrogen under visible light. The semiconduc...
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| Published in | Chemical Society reviews Vol. 45; no. 8; pp. 238 - 2326 |
|---|---|
| Main Authors | , , |
| Format | Journal Article |
| Language | English |
| Published |
England
21.04.2016
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| Subjects | |
| Online Access | Get full text |
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| Summary: | Despite being one of the oldest materials described in the chemical literature, graphitic carbon nitride (g-C
3
N
4
) has just recently experienced a renaissance as a highly active photocatalyst, and the metal-free polymer was shown to be able to generate hydrogen under visible light. The semiconductor nature of g-C
3
N
4
has triggered tremendous endeavors on its structural manipulation for enhanced photo(electro)chemical performance, aiming at an affordable clean energy future. While pursuing the stem of g-C
3
N
4
related catalysis (photocatalysis, electrocatalysis and photoelectrocatalysis), a number of emerging intrinsic properties of g-C
3
N
4
are certainly interesting, but less well covered, and we believe that these novel applications outside of conventional catalysis can be favorably exploited as well. Thanks to the general efforts devoted to the exploration and enrichment of g-C
3
N
4
based chemistry, the boundaries of this area have been possibly pushed far beyond what people could imagine in the beginning. This review strives to cover the achievements of g-C
3
N
4
related materials in these unconventional application fields for depicting the broader future of these metal-free and fully stable semiconductors. This review starts with the general protocols to engineer g-C
3
N
4
micro/nanostructures for practical use, and then discusses the newly disclosed applications in sensing, bioimaging, novel solar energy exploitation including photocatalytic coenzyme regeneration, templating, and carbon nitride based devices. Finally, we attempt an outlook on possible further developments in g-C
3
N
4
based research.
Despite being one of the oldest materials described in the chemical literature, graphitic carbon nitride (g-C
3
N
4
) has just recently experienced a renaissance as a highly active photo/electrocatalyst, and the metal-free polymer was also shown to be have diverse applications in various fields. |
|---|---|
| Bibliography: | Hongqiang Wang received his PhD in Condensed Matter Physics at the Institute of Solid State Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in 2008. He then worked, respectively, as a Postdoctoral Researcher, an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow and a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellow in National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (Japan), Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces (Germany), and University of Liverpool (UK). He has been a Professor in Northwestern Polytechnical University (China) since 2015. His main research interest is the extremely non-equilibrium processing and its use for generating novel functional materials. Markus Antonietti is a Director of the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces and has recently focused on sustainable materials for the energy change. He has written about 650 original papers and is well cited in the field of functional polymers, porous materials, heterogeneous organocatalysis, and artificial photosynthesis. Jian Liu received his PhD degree in Physical Chemistry with Prof. Yanlin Song from Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2011. In January of 2012, he joined Prof. Markus Antonietti's group at the Max-Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces with an Alexander von Humboldt Research Postdoctoral Fellowship. After two and half years stay in the Department of Colloid Chemistry, he moved to Prof. Mercouri G. Kanatzidis's group at Northwestern University (Evanston, US) for further studying. His current scientific interest is mainly focused on the synthesis of bio-inspired functional materials for solar energy and environmental science. ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
| ISSN: | 0306-0012 1460-4744 |
| DOI: | 10.1039/c5cs00767d |