One-step photodeposition of spatially separated CuO and MnO dual cocatalysts on g-CN for enhanced CO photoreduction.

The rapid recombination of photogenerated carriers of photocatalysts greatly limits their actual application in CO conversion into valuable chemicals. Herein, dual CuO and MnO cocatalysts are decorated on g-CN nanosheets a one-step photodeposition strategy. Benefiting from the repulsion between Cu and Mn cations, a novel g-CN-based heterostructure loaded with spatially separated CuO and MnO nanoparticle dual cocatalysts has been successfully fabricated. Cu favors the trapping of electrons, while MnO tends to collect holes. Moreover, the CuO/g-CN p-n heterojunction also accelerates the charge separation. As a result, the photogenerated holes and electrons flow into and out of the photocatalyst, respectively, resulting in enhanced charge separation for achieving efficient CO photoreduction over CuO/g-CN/MnO. Accordingly, the optimized CuO/g-CN/MnO exhibits an improved CO production rate of 5.49 μmol g h, which is 27.5 times higher than that of bare g-CN.