Enhancement of catalytic activity and oxidative ability for graphitic carbon nitride

Growing awareness of energy conservation and pollutant elimination has been raised on graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) recently thanks to the tunable electronic structure and excellent physicochemical stability of g-C3N4. This review summarizes the recent progress of g-C3N4 based materials regarding the catalytic activity improvement and oxidative ability enhancement. The former includes nanostructure design at different dimensions and fabrication of hybridized structure, core-shell structure or 3D hydrogel structure. The latter includes valence band modulation via conjugative effects of pi-bond, copolymerization or doping, fabrication of Z-scheme heterojunction structure and synergetic effect of photoelectrocatalysis. The electronic structure and potential applications of g-C3N4 are also briefly discussed. This review provides new insights into the improvement of catalytic activity and oxidative ability for g-C3N4 materials and may help to facilitate their potential utilization in the field of energy transformation and environmental recovery. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.