In photocatalytic reactions, nanosheets are particularly beneficial for enhancing photocatalysis efficiency. For instance, it possesses exceptional mechanical, electronic, thermal, optical properties compared to bulk nanomaterials 15. This feature often brings nanosheets with unique physicochemical properties due to the quantum confinement effect. Moreover, nanosheets achieved by the delamination of 2D layered compounds have been regarded as a novel class of nanostructured materials owing to their unique structural characteristic of ultimate two-dimensional anisotropy with extremely small thickness in nanometer scale 14. It is of great interest that graphite-like carbon nitride (g-C 3N 4), a prototypical 2D polymer featuring a semiconductor band gap of 2.7 eV, is in favour of visible light absorption, charge carriers generation, separation and transfer on the interface 10, 11, 12, 13. Polymeric carbon nitride, as layer materials, made up from infinite 1D chains (a zigzag-type geometry) of NH-bridged melem (C 6N 7(NH 2) 3) monomers was initially reported by Berzelius and termed “melon” by Liebig 8, 9. Hitherto, the explorations of graphene-analogue 2D crystals have experienced an explosion of interest because much added-value may be brought by the translation of 2D atomic crystals into semiconductors 7. An eminent incarnation of such atomically thin materials is graphene and it has attracted great attention since the finding of freestanding graphene and the follow-up experimental confirmation that its charge carriers are indeed massless Dirac fermions 5, 6. The confinement of electron transfer in two dimensional (2D) systems with unique properties has stimulated tremendous attention, particularly nanosheets and layered nanojunctions with thickness on the scale of several atoms 1, 2, 3, 4. This strategy is novel and facile, which could stimulate numerous attentions in development of high-performance g-C 3N 4 based functional nanomaterials. By monitoring the reaction intermediate and active species, the reaction mechanism for photocatalytic oxidation of NO by g-C 3N 4 was proposed. OH) play a minor role in photocatalysis reaction.O 2 −) and photogenerated holes are the main reactive species, while hydroxyl radicals (.The DMPO ESR-spin trapping and hole trapping results demonstrate that the superoxide radicals (
The excellent activity of CN-2T can be ascribed to the co-contribution of enlarged surface areas, strengthened electron-hole separation efficiency, enhanced electrons reduction capability and prolonged charge carriers lifetime. The optimized 2D g-C 3N 4 (CN-2T) exhibited exceptional high photocatalytic performance with a NO removal ratio of 48.3%, superior to that of BiOBr (21.3%), (BiO) 2CO 3 (18.6%) and Au/(BiO) 2CO 3 (33.8%). As thiourea mass decreases, thin g-C 3N 4 nanosheets with higher surface area, elevated conduction band position and enhanced photocatalytic capability was triumphantly achieved. The nanoarchitecture and photocatalytic capability of g-C 3N 4 can be well-tailored only by altering the precursors mass. In the present work, it is very surprising to find that the precursors mass, a long overlooked factor for synthesis of 2D g-C 3N 4, exerts unexpected impact on g-C 3N 4 fabrication.