Abstract
The nanocomposites of g-C3N4 were prepared with reduced graphene oxide by reducing it with ascorbic acid (AA) and NaBH4. As-fabricated g-C3N4@r-GO nanocomposites were used in a water splitting to generate hydrogen i.e. 339.82 µmolh− 1g− 1 form the nanocomposite g-C3N4@r-GO (AA) with 2.52% apparent quantum efficiency at 420 nm, which is 5.6, 3.4, 1.6, and 1.4 times higher than their counterparts, g-C3N4, GO, g-C3N4@GO, and g-C3N4@GO(NaBH4), respectively. The composites were also tested for specific capacitance, where the composite g-C3N4@r-GO (AA) demonstrated the highest specific capacitance of 322.77 F g− 1 at 2 A/g in aqueous 2 M KOH with 78.56% charge retention after 5000 cycles at 3 A/g. The SPV study confirm the formation of effective interface with p-n junction, minimum band gap by using optical absorption, effective charge transfer using EIS, interfacial interaction, layered structure, and PLE study approve minimum charge-recombination rate in nanocomposites g-C3N4@r-GO(AA) that significantly supported the reasonable H2 generation rate as well as the good super capacitive behaviour. The substance under study guarantees a promising position in the development of the mystical material for the preparation of H2 and next-generation high-performance electrochemical supercapacitors.
Data availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to NRF centre of Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, UPES, Dehradun and Central University of Gujarat (India) for performing SPV, cyclic voltammetry (CV), galvanostatic charge discharge (GCD), and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) studies and FESEM analyses to support this piece of research.
Funding
NC and NG gratefully acknowledge the financial support of DST(KIRAN)SERB, New Delhi under project No (SR/WOS A/CS94/2018 dated: 26 Nov., 2018).
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Neelu Chouhan: Conceptualization (lead); Investigation (lead); Methodology (lead); Validation (lead); Project administration (lead); Writing– original draft (lead) review & editing(lead). Om Prakash Nagar: Investigation (supporting); Validation (supporting).: Conceptualization (supporting); Investigation (supporting); Validation (supporting), Writing – review & editing (supporting); Manish Kameliya, Conceptualization (lead); investigation (lead); Writing – original draft (lead); Writing – review & editing (equal). Neeta Gurbani: Investigation (supporting); Validation (supporting).: Conceptualization (supporting); Investigation (supporting); Validation (supporting), Writing – review & editing (supporting); Saurabh Dalela: Investigation (supporting); Narendra Singh Leel: Investigation (supporting) and Shailendra Kumar: Investigation (supporting).
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Nagar, O.P., Kameliya, M., Gurbani, N. et al. Graphitic carbon nitride–reduced graphene oxide (g-C3N4@r-GO) nanocomposites for photocatalytic hydrogen production by water splitting and high-performance electrochemical supercapacitors. Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-35069-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-35069-5
