Promoting Piezocatalytic H O Production in Pure Water by Loading Metal-Organic Cage-Modified Gold Nanoparticles on Graphitic Carbon Nitride.

Piezocatalytic hydrogen peroxide (H O ) production is a green synthesis method, but the rapid complexation of charge carriers in piezocatalysts and the difficulty of adsorbing substrates limit its performance. Here, metal-organic cage-coated gold nanoparticles are anchored on graphitic carbon nitride (MOC-AuNP/g-C N ) via hydrogen bond to serve as the multifunctional sites for efficient H O production. Experiments and theoretical calculations prove that MOC-AuNP/g-C N simultaneously optimize three key parts of piezocatalytic H O production: i) the MOC component enhances substrate (O ) and product (H O ) adsorption via host-guest interaction and hinders the rapid decomposition of H O on MOC-AuNP/g-C N , ii) the AuNP component affords a strong interfacial electric field that significantly promotes the migration of electrons from g-C N for O reduction reaction (ORR), iii) holes are used for H O oxidation reaction (WOR) to produce O and H to further promote ORR. Thus, MOC-AuNP/g-C N can be used as an efficient piezocatalyst to generate H O at rates up to 120.21 μmol g  h in air and pure water without using sacrificial agents. This work proposes a new strategy for efficient piezocatalytic H O synthesis by constructing multiple active sites in semiconductor catalysts via hydrogen bonding, by enhancing substrate adsorption, rapid separation of electron-hole pairs and preventing rapid decomposition of H O .