Effect of the structure distortion on the high photocatalytic performance of C60/g-C3N4 composite

C60/g-C3N4 composite was reported experimentally to be of high photocatalytic activity in degrading organics. To investigate the underlying mechanism of high photocatalytic performance, the structural and electronic properties of g-C3N4 monolayers with adsorbing and removing fullerene C60 are studied by means of density functional theory calculations. After 25 possible configurations examination, it is found that C60 prefers to stay upon the “junction nitrogen” with the carbon atom of fullerene being nearest to monolayers. Correspondingly, a type-I band alignment appears. Our results further demonstrate that the adsorption of C60 can lead to an irreversible structure distortion for g-C3N4 from flat to wrinkle, which plays a crucial role in improving photocatalytic performance other than the separation of carriers at interface due to the formation of type-II heterojunctions as previous report. Compared to flat one, the light absorption of wrinkled structure shows augmented, the valence band maximum shifts towards lower position along with a stronger photo-oxidation capability. Interestingly, the results indicate that the energy, light absorption and band edge all have a particular relationship with wrinkle degree. The work presented here can be helpful to understand the mechanism behind the better photocatalytic performance for C60 modified g-C3N4.