Engineering 2D compressed layered g-C₃N₄ nanosheets by the intercalation of BiVO₄-Bi₂WO₆ composites for boosting photocatalytic activities

The traditional bulk graphitic carbon nitride has disadvantages of weak visible light absorption ability and fast charge carrier recombination speed, which greatly limit its further industrial application. In this work, we successfully construct a new ternary heterojunction photocatalyst that 2D compressed layered g-C₃N₄ nanosheets (CNNs) are modified by the intercalation of BiVO₄-Bi₂WO₆ composites (CVW-I) through one-step hydrothermal method, in which the bismuth precursors are introduced and confined in the interlayer of CNNs and hence the compressed adjacent layers are formed simultaneously in CNNs. Since the close contact of different components with compressed carbon nitride layers, the built-in electric field is relatively formed and the recombination rate between photogenerated electrons and holes is remarkably suppressed. Attributing to these improvements, the as-constructed CVW-I composite achieves more striking photocatalytic activity, and the rate constant of CVW-I reached the highest values for RhB and TC degradation (k = 0.058 min⁻¹ and 0.048 min⁻¹), which are 4.5 and 3.6 times higher than those of carbon nitride, respectively.