Chapter 17

Modification Strategies

of g-C3N4 for Potential

Applications in Photocatalysis

A Sustainable Approach towards the

Environment

Sachin Shoran,¹ Sweety Dahiya,¹ Anshu Sharma²

and Sudesh Chaudhary^1,*

17.1 Introduction

Graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) has been used as a visible-light-active polymeric photocatalyst

(460 nm) with a bandgap of 2.7 eV. g-C3N4 has become useful in engineering and physics because

of its low-cost and eco-friendly synthesis techniques. It is also a stable catalyst with promising

physicochemical properties (Ong et al. 2016). In comparison with other semiconductors, g-C3N4 can

be successfully prepared by multiple processes and has the desired electrical structures and

morphologies, as well as good thermal stability in the air up to 600ºC (Liu et al. 2021, Taha et al.

2021). The most frequently used precursors of g-C3N4 are urea, thiourea, dicyandiamide, cyanamide,

melamine and ammonium thiocyanate (Figure 17.2). Among several forms of carbon nitrides, such

as cubic C3N4, pseudocubic C3N4, α-C3N4 and β-C3N4; g-C3N4 is the most stable phase under

ambient circumstances (Ong et al. 2016). Researchers have proposed many strategies for improving

the performance and modulating the characteristics of g-C3N4, such as heterojunction with other

materials and doping with metal sulfides, noble metals, nonmetals and metal oxides nanoparticles

are examples of these materials (Ren et al. 2019, Jiang et al. 2020, Wei et al. 2022). Metal oxides

enhance the efficiency of g-C3N4, such as boosting light absorption and lowering the electron and

hole’s recombination by encouraging charge carrier separation. This is primarily because of their

appropriate band structure (Li et al. 2016, Fu et al. 2018). The g-C3N4 structure has been extensively

1 Center of Excellence for Energy and Environmental Studies, Deenbandhu Chhotu Ram University of Science and

Technology, Murthal-131039 (Haryana), India.

2 Department of Physics under School of Engineering and Technology, Central University of Haryana, Mahendergarh-123031

(Haryana), India.

* Corresponding author: sudesh.energy@dcrustm.org