Facile and Scale Up Synthesis of Red Phosphorus-Graphitic Carbon Nitride Heterostructures for Energy and Environment Applications

The development of heterostructured materials for efficient solar energy conversion and energy storage devices are essential for practical applications. In this study, a simple and relatively inexpensive method was used to improve the visible light-driven photocatalytic activity and electrochemical supercapacitor behavior of the graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) by elemental red phosphorus (RPh). The as-prepared RPh-g-C3N4 was characterized in detail using a range of spectroscopic techniques to understand the structure, morphology, chemical interaction, and chemical state of the materials. The visible light-driven photocatalytic activity and supercapacitive electrode performance were assessed by the photodegradation of model colored, non-colored organic pollutants, and electrochemical half-cell measurements, respectively. The RPh-g-C3N4 heterostructure with 30 weight percent of RPh exhibited remarkably high photocatalytic activity for the degradation of pollutants compared to the bare constituent materials, which was further confirmed by the photoelectrochemical study under similar visible photoirradiation conditions. The RPh-g-C3N4 heterostructure supercapacitor electrode displayed a high capacitance of 465 F/g and excellent cyclic stability with capacitance retention of 90% after 1000 cycles at a current of 10 A/g. The superior performance was attributed mainly to the narrow band gap, high surface area, capacitive nature of RPh, and nitrogen-rich skeleton of g-C3N4.