Electron acceptor of Ni decorated porous carbon nitride applied in photocatalytic hydrogen production

Nickel, a non-noble metal, is one of the most promising candidates for photocatalysis because it is inexpensive and an earth-abundant metal. Herein, Ni/CM-C3N4 nanocomposites with Ni as a cocatalyst were synthesized by a simple solvothermal method. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) confirmed that Ni nanoparticles were loaded onto the surface of CM-C3N4. The prepared Ni/CM-C3N4 nanocomposites exhibited an enhanced hydrogen evolution activity. The most active catalyst contained 10% Ni and produced H2 at a rate of 313.2 μmol h−1 g−1, which was obviously higher than that of pure CM-C3N4. The results of photoluminescence (PL) and photoacoustics (PA) studies indicated that the recombination efficiency of photo-induced electron–hole pairs was decreased for CM-Ni10 as compared to that for unmodified CM-C3N4. The transient photovoltage (TPV) measurements directly demonstrated that the recombination time of electron–hole pairs in CM-Ni10 was prolonged. More importantly, the reversed surface photovoltage (SPV) and the declined surface photocurrent (SPC) response of CM-Ni10 revealed that the photogenerated electrons could be trapped by Ni, leading to a better separation efficiency and a superior hydrogen production. Finally, the possible mechanism is proposed to illuminate the photogenerated charge behavior between CM-C3N4 and Ni, which might provide a theoretical basis to develop efficient cocatalysts for photocatalytic water splitting.