Graphene oxide as a structure-directing agent for the two-dimensional interface engineering of sandwich-like graphene–g-C3N4 hybrid nanostructures with enhanced visible-light photoreduction of CO2 to methane.

A facile one-pot impregnation–thermal reduction strategy was employed to fabricate sandwich-like graphene–g-C3N4 (GCN) nano-composites using urea and graphene oxide as precursors. The GCN sample exhibited a slight red shift of the absorption band edge attributed to the formation of a C–O–C bond as a covalent cross linker between graphene and g-C3N4. The GCN sample demonstrated high visible-light photoactivity towards CO2 reduction under ambient conditions, exhibiting a 2.3-fold enhancement over pure g-C3N4. This was ascribed to the inhibition of electron–hole pair recombination by graphene, which increased the charge transfer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]