Drawing the distinguished graphite carbon nitride
(g-C
3
N
4
) on SnO
2
nanoflake film for solar water
oxidation
Young Jun Seo
a
, Pran Krisna Das
b
, Maheswari Arunachalam
c
,
Kwang-Soon Ahn
d
, Jun-Seok Ha
e
, Soon Hyung Kang
a,*
a
Department of Chemistry Education, Chonnam National University, Yongbong-ro 77, Yongbong-dong, Gwangju
500-757, Republic of Korea
b
Department of Advanced Chemicals and Engineering, Chonnam National University, Yongbong-ro 77, Yongbong-
dong, Gwangju 500-757, Republic of Korea
c
Department of Chemistry, Chonnam National University, Yongbong-ro 77, Yongbong-dong, Gwangju 500-757,
Republic of Korea
d
School of Chemical Engineering, Yeungnam University, Gyeongsan 712-749, Republic of Korea
e
Department of Chemical Engineering, Chonnam National University, Gwangju 61186, Republic of Korea
highlights
Graphite carbon (g-C
3
N
4
) was synthesized and deposited by electrophoretic deposition on SnO
2
nanoflake film.
g-C
3
N
4
/SnO
2
nanoflake film exhibits the photocurrent density of 0.15 mA/cm
2
at 1.23 V
RHE
.
article info
Article history:
Received 14 April 2020
Received in revised form
10 June 2020
Accepted 15 June 2020
Available online xxx
Keywords:
Photoelectrochemical water
splitting
SnO
2
nanoflake
Graphite carbon (g-C
3
N
4
)
Heterojunction
Electrophoretic deposition
abstract
Tin dioxide (SnO
2
) nanoflakes electrodes were developed by a simple hydrothermal syn-
thesis with a length of ~1.5 mm. Based on this electrode, g-C
3
N
4
layer with an energetic
band gap of about 2.7 eV was deposited by electrophoretic deposition under constant po-
tential (30 V) for 3, 5 and 10 min, respectively. To enhance the chemical adsorption of g-
C
3
N
4
sheets on SnO
2
nanoflake film, the SnO
2
film was put in 0.5 M NaOH solution, and OH
ions were coated via the entire surface area of SnO
2
film. As increasing the deposited time
of the g-C
3
N
4
layer to 5 min, the g-C
3
N
4
nanosheets steadily covered the surface area. In
particular, g-C
3
N
4
(5min)/SnO
2
nanoflake film exhibited the maximum photocurrent den-
sity (J
SC
), 0.15 mA/cm
2
at 1.23 V vs. Reversible Hydrogen Electrode under the full sun, and a
slight photoresponse in the visible light of 400e450 nm contributes to the enhancement of
J
SC
, compared to that of SnO
2
nanoflake film. Furthermore, the interfacial resistance after
the coating of g-C
3
N
4
layer is sharply reduced, which is resulted from the electrocatalytic
effect of g-C
3
N
4
layer. Thus, the heterojunction developed between the core SnO
2
layer
showing a high conductivity and the shell g-C
3
N
4
layer as the visible light absorbing me-
dium can improve the photoelectrochemical performance.
© 2020 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: skang@jnu.ac.kr (S.H. Kang).
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
ScienceDirect
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/he
international journal of hydrogen energy xxx (xxxx) xxx
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2020.06.143
0360-3199/© 2020 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Please cite this article as: Seo YJ et al., Drawing the distinguished graphite carbon nitride (g-C
3
N
4
) on SnO
2
nanoflake film for solar water
oxidation, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2020.06.143