Template free synthesis of lithium doped three-dimensional macroporous graphitic carbon nitride for photocatalytic N2 fixation: the effect of Li-N active sites.

In this work, three-dimensional macroporous lithium doped graphitic carbon nitride was synthesized. XRD, N2 adsorption, SEM, XPS, UV-Vis spectroscopy, N2-TPD and photoluminescence were used to characterize the prepared catalysts. The result shows that lithium exists as a coordinative Li-N bond, which can chemisorb and activate N2 molecules, and promote the electron transfer from the catalyst to the nitrogen molecules. The as-prepared lithium doped g-C3N4 shows a NH4+ production rate of 4.8 mg L-1 h-1 gcat-1, which is 20 times that of bulk g-C3N4. Density functional theory (DFT) simulations show that lithium doping can not only increase the N[triple bond, length as m-dash]N bond length, which activates N2 molecules, but also promote the electron-hole separation efficiency of g-C3N4.