One-step fabrication of porous oxygen-doped g-C₃N₄ with feeble nitrogen vacancies for enhanced photocatalytic performance

Porous oxygen-doped graphitic carbon nitride (g-C₃N₄) with feeble nitrogen vacancies was fabricated through thermal polycondensation of melamine with an appropriate amount of polyvinylpyrrolidone. After optimization, the bandgap of g-C₃N₄ can be narrowed by 0.2 eV and the specific surface area expanded, which contribute to increasing the utilization of solar energy. Consequently, the optimized g-C₃N₄ exhibits impressive enhancement in photocatalytic hydrogen evolution performance, by nearly 5 times compared with the pristine one under the irradiation of visible light.