Strain Tunable Photocatalytic Ability of $BC_{6}N$ Monolayer

TL;DR

This study investigates the photocatalytic properties of $BC_{6}N$ monolayer, demonstrating its potential for environmental applications like water splitting and pollutant reduction, and shows how strain tuning enhances its capabilities.

Contribution

The paper introduces $BC_{6}N$ as a new 2D photocatalyst and demonstrates how biaxial strain can enhance its redox abilities for environmental applications.

Findings

$BC_{6}N$ exhibits strong visible light absorption and good reducing ability.

Biaxial strain enables $BC_{6}N$ to perform simultaneous oxidation and reduction.

$BC_{6}N$ can be used for metal ion deposition, hydrogen fuel generation, and CO2 sequestration.

Abstract

We explore the photocatalytic ability of honeycomb lattice of borocarbonitride, $BC_{6}N$, investigating its opto-electronic properties and band-edge alignment based on hybrid density functional theory. We observe that along with pronounced visible absorbance, $BC_{6}N$ exhibits a good reducing ability. It is capable of depositing heavy metal ions, hydrogen fuel generation and carbon dioxide sequestration through photoelectrocatalysis. To broaden its applicability we further tune its redox ability using biaxial strain. We observe even a slight expansion makes this material capable of performing simultaneous oxidation and reduction, which is essential for waste management and hydrogen generation through spontaneous water splitting. In this study, we propose $BC_{6}N$ to be a promising potential candidate as metal free 2D photocatalyst and show ways to tune its applicability to address multiple environmental crises.