Microstructure Regulation of Graphitic Carbon Nitride Nanotubes Via Quick Thermal Polymerization Process for Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution

Among multitudinous photocatalytic materials, graphite carbonitride (g-C3N4) has been widely explored as a new photocatalyst. The g-C3N4 nanotubes with hollow one-dimensional structure can promote carrier migration along the one-dimensional direction, thereby improving the electron-hole separation efficiency, which has always been a hot spot. However, the collapse of nanotubes in long-term thermal polymerization process leads to the decline of photocatalytic performance, which is expected to be further optimized. Herein, we report g-C3N4 nanotubes (TCN) through short time thermal polymerization to ensure the integrity of g-C3N4 skeleton. And the influence of thermal temperature on the internal formation mechanism of nanotube morphology is investigated. Combined with the unique hollow tube structure and complete framework, the migration of photogenerated carriers is significantly accelerated and the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution performance is improved more than 7 times compared with the original g-C3N4. This work provides novel insights into the preparation of g-C3N4 nanotubes for photocatalytic applications.