Carbon nitride is cheap, scalable, non-toxic, suitable for solar hydrogen generation, but has limited activity due to severe charge recombination.

In our recent study published in Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences, we demonstrate that the carrier dynamics in carbon nitride can be improved by engineering the edge functional groups and introducing nickel cocatalyst. The accelerated charge separation and transfer lead to enhanced hydrogen and acetaldehyde productions with above 99% selectivity towards acetaldehyde during ethanol photoreforming.

Delivering such a selective photoreforming reaction is essential to avoid greenhouse carbon dioxide gas emissions and enable simultaneous production of hydrogen fuel and useful chemicals.

The open-access article is now available to read, or connect with corresponding author: Prof Rose Amal or Dr Cuiying Toe.

The presence of urea groups is expected to significantly shorten the lag time for Ni2+ reduction as well as increase the H2 evolution and acetaldehyde production rates due to the improved photogenerated charge carrier dynamics.