Graphitic Carbon Nitride and Carbon Composites for Electroand Photochemical Applications

Abstract

Energy conservation and environmental protection have remained an issue of great attention among scientific communities and climate activists from past decades. It has also stimulated the greater utilization of solar energy and renewables to bridge the gap between energy demand and energy consumption. Research efforts in the twenty-first century are directed more towards finding effective alternatives of fossil-based fuels in form of clean and renewable energy. At the same time, harnessing the solar power to drive the related reaction is of great significance to protect the Mother Nature from hazardous materials by their sensitive detection and selective remediation. Such necessities also come under the ambit of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) 6, 7, 13 and 14 set up by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015. newline Deployment of H2 as an energy carrier into fuel cells has acted as a promising milestone as it has a high energy density (120 142 MJ kg-1 ). Hydrogen generation by electrocatalytic water splitting driven by renewable electricity is a promising pathway for the sustainable hydrogen economy as it also leads to less consumption of fossil-based fuels which in turn controls climate change. Noble metal platinum is still the best electrocatalyst for this purpose with a high exchange current density (j0) and small Tafel slope, but its higher cost acts as a hindrance for commercial use. newlineThe research community is looking for an alternative of this precious metal, in this effort, transition metal-based carbide and carbon composites as an electrocatalyst and earth-abundant non-metal element-based materials viz. g-C3N4 are of great interest. Besides fossil-based fuels which emit greenhouse gas on combustion, there are many industrial pollutants and chemicals of carcinogenic nature such as azo dyes and phenolic compounds which are listed by the US Environmental Protection Agency under the hazardous category for the environment.