Activating Co nanoparticles on P-doped carbon nitride via enhancing Mott-Schottky effect by constructing interfacial chemical bonding for the efficient dehydrogenation of ammonia-borane

Novel Mott-Scokttky heterojunction photocatalyst was constructed by supporting Co nanoparticles (NPs) onto the surface of P-doped graphic carbon nitride (PCN) for the dehydrogenation of ammonia-borane (AB). Stable chemical bonding of Co-P-N between metallic Co NPs and PCN has formed when Co NPs are introduced. The analysis shows that this bonding not only offers strong confinement effect which can decrease the size of Co NPs efficiently, but also acts as the bridge for the charge transfer and dramatically increases the separation efficiency of photo-generated electron/hole pairs at the interface of Co NPs and PCN supports. Therefore, the MottSchottky effect of this heterojunction is significantly increased and remarkably facilitated the catalytic performance for the dehydrogenation of AB. The total turnover frequency (TOF) value of Co/PCN is 82.04 mol H-2 mol(-1) metal min(-1) at 298 K under visible light, which is one of the highest values reported among the non-noble metal catalysts. This study provides an easy and feasible method to further promote the catalytic activity of g-C3N4 based Mott-Schottky catalysts and gives an expect for the dehydrogenation of AB with highly efficiency by non-noble metal based catalysts.