The Construction of Phosphorus-Doped g-C₃N₄/Rh-Doped SrTiO₃ with Type-II Band Alignment for Efficient Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution

It is of great importance to promote charge separation in photocatalysts for enhanced photocatalytic activity under visible light irradiation. In this work, a type-II heterostructured photocatalyst was constructed by compositing phosphorus-doped g-C₃N₄ (P-CN) and Rh-doped SrTiO₃ (Rh-STO) via a thermal calcination treatment. A series of characterizations were conducted to investigate the structure of heterostructured P-CN/Rh-STO. It was found that Rh-STO interacted with in situ generated P atoms from the decomposition of P-CN during the calcination process, thus leading to the formation of heterojunction of P-CN/Rh-STO. Compared with the single component, i.e., P-CN or Rh-STO, the obtained P-CN/Rh-STO showed superior photocatalytic activity to that of both P-CN and Rh-STO due to the effective charge separation across the heterojunction between P-CN and Rh-STO.