Construction of an interface interaction in a g-C 3 N 4 /CdS/NiS for photoreforming of plastic and clean hydrogen regeneration.

Converting plastics into organic matter by photoreforming is an emerging way to deal with plastic pollution and produce valuable organic matter. Water shortage can be alleviated by using seawater resources. To solve these problems, we synthesize a ternary heterostructure composite g-C ₃ N ₄ /CdS/NiS. Heterojunctions are formed between graphitized carbon nitride (g-C ₃ N ₄ ), cadmium sulfide (CdS) and nickel sulfide (NiS), which effectively improve the problem of fast charge recombination of pure g-C ₃ N ₄ and CdS. The results of the g-C ₃ N ₄ /CdS/NiS photocatalytic tests show that the hydrogen production rates in seawater and pure water for 5 h are 30.44 and 25.79 mmol/g/h, respectively. In stability test, the hydrogen production rate of the g-C ₃ N ₄ /CdS/NiS in seawater and pure water is similar. This suggests that seawater can replace pure water as a source of hydrogen. While H ₂ is generated, the lactate obtained by polylactic acid (PLA) hydrolysis is oxidized to form small organic compounds such as formate, acetate and pyruvate. Our study shows that g-C ₃ N ₄ /CdS/NiS can not only use seawater as a hydrogen source to produce H ₂ , but also photoreformate plastics dissolved in seawater into valuable small organic molecules. This has a positive impact on the production and use of clean energy, as well as on plastic pollution and water scarcity.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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