Journal of Porous Materials

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10934-023-01492-6

Photocatalytic performance of inverse‑opal g‑carbon nitride

and bismuth oxide compositing microstructures
Zheli Wu1 · Tingwan Sun1 · Caixia Li1 · Xiaoyu Liu1 · Jiefeng Li1 · Ming Fu1 · Dawei He1 · Yongsheng Wang1

Accepted: 15 June 2023

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2023

Abstract
The development of visible-light photocatalytic materials in porous morphology with suitable photon management is
significant for energy utilization and environmental protection. g-C3N4 and B ­ i2O3 are both typical visible-light semiconductor
photocatalysts and their inverse-opal structures could provide larger surface area. Meanwhile, the fabrication of heterojunction
composites is conducive to suppress the recombination of photo-generated carriers and enhance the photocatalytic
performance. In this work, g-C3N4 inverse opals on the basis of T ­ iO2 or T
­ iO2/SiO2 framework and B ­ i2O3 inverse opals were
successfully synthesized by a simple sol-gel method. The photocatalytic performance gets improved with the introduction
of g-C3N4 in inverse opals, and the removal of S ­ iO2 in ­SiO2/TiO2 framework provides additional mesoporous morphologies
which further advances the light harvesting efficiency. The photocurrent densities of the inverse-opal structures are all higher
than the corresponding films. The photonic band gap position originated from the periodicity of inverse opals was modulated
by using colloidal crystals template in different diameters. Better photochemical characteristics are achieved when the
absorption peak of ­Bi2O3 is coincident with the high-frequency photonic band edge of inverse opals. The heterostructures
consisting of g-C3N4 inverse opals and B ­ i2O3 inverse opals were fabricated and stronger optical absorption and higher
transient photocurrent responses are presented compared with both individual inverse-opal structures.
.

1 Introduction low specific surface area, and relatively inefficient utili-

Recently semiconductor-based photocatalyst has attracted
extensive attention because of its great potential in environ-
mental protection and solar energy conversion. Especially,
among all the semiconductor photocatalysts, graphitic car-
bon nitride (g-C3N4) has been widely studied in these years
due to its excellent properties including reliable physico-
chemical stability and a suitable band gap of ≈ 2.7 eV [1]
for visible light absorption. However, there are still some
intrinsic deficiencies that limit the solar energy conver-
sion efficiency of bulk g-C3N4 photocatalyst, including the
high recombination rate of photo-generated carriers [2],
Zheli Wu and Tingwan Sun equally contributed to this work.
* Ming Fu
mfu@bjtu.edu.cn
1
Key Laboratory of Luminescence and Optical Information,
Ministry of Education, Institute of Optoelectronic
Technology, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044,
People’s Republic of China
zation in visible-light region. In order to overcome these
puzzling problems and improve the light trapping ability,
many related methods have been carried out, for instance,
the introduction of metal/non-metal atoms or defects [3–5],
noble metal nanoparticles modification [6–8], the modifi-
cation of the atomic states on crystal surfaces [9, 10], the
development of nanostructures, [11, 12] and the fabrication
of heterojunction composites with suitable semiconductors
[13–15]. The defects like carbon or nitrogen vacancies and
the fabrication of heterojunction could adjust the band gap
of g-C3N4 and extend its light absorption range. Noble metal
nanoparticles modification is usually applied to improve
the charge separation efficiency. Nanostructure manipula-
tion is mainly used to increase the surface area and enhance
the light harvesting efficiency, involving nanoarchitectures
designing such as nanosheet [16, 17], nanospheres [11],
mesoporous [18] or microporous constructions.
Photonic crystals (PCs) [19–21] are nanostructures with
periodic arrangement of materials in different index. At the
wavelength near photonic band gap edges, light propagates
with strongly reduced group velocity (slow light effect) [22].

13
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The fabrication of the g-C3N4 based inverse-opal (IO) struc-
tures with photonic bandgap property is a potential way to
enhance photocatalytic performance due to their advanced
geometric properties. Compared with the normal g-C3N4
films or nanoparticles, g-C3N4 PCs in inverse-opal struc-
tures possess larger surface area and more photocatalytic
reaction active sites. Besides, the optical path lengthens
caused by slow light effect could amplify the absorption of
incident photon. Moreover, on the basis of g-C3N4 inverse-
opal structures, the enhancement of porosity by introducing
mesoporous morphologies could further increase the surface
area and promote light utilization efficiency.
Although the nanoarchitecture of inverse-opal structures
for g-C3N4 can enhance the photocatalytic efficiency, the
high carrier-recombination rate of g-C3N4 is still a crucial
challenge for further advancement of photocatalytic
performance. The applying of built-in electric field from the
construction of heterojunctions can drive photo-generated
electrons and holes to transfer in opposite directions,
thus inhibiting their recombination [23]. In addition, the
heterostructures composed of two semiconductors can also
superimpose their respective light responses to advance
light utilization. Hence, constructing g-C3N4 and another
semiconductor photocatalyst with suitable band gap
into the heterojunctions could promote the separation of
photo-generated carriers and improve the photocatalytic
performance. ­Bi2O3 has a band gap of about 2.8 eV with
0.33 eV of conduction band and 3.13 eV of valence band,
possessing the characteristics of visible-light response and
excellent chemical stability. Attributed to the appropriate
band structure relationship, the g-C3N 4 and ­B i 2O 3 are
potential materials for constituting a potential Z-scheme
heterojunction.
Among the previous reports, the synthesis of g-C3N4
inverse opals was always challenging because of the complex
processes [24–26]. The commonly used fabrication method
of g-C3N4 IOs is by sintering the mixture of silica photonic
crystals and dicyandiamide at 550 °C [27, 28]. This method
is only suitable for the synthesis of g-C3N4 IOs in powder
form. Herein, we design a well-ordered three dimensional
g-C3N4 inverse opals with enhanced porosity(EP g-C 3N4
IOs) based on ­SiO2/TiO2 framework using a simple sol-gel
method. The heterostructures consisting of ­C3N4 IOs and
­Bi2O3 IOs are also fabricated. The increasing of surface
area by the nanostructure manipulation and the inhibition
of photo-generated carriers recombination attributed to
heterostructures effectively improve the photocatalytic
performance of the composites.
13
Journal of Porous Materials
2 Experimental section
2.1 Syntheses of colloidal crystal templates
The polystyrene (PS) microspheres with different diameters
were used to prepare colloidal crystals templates via
the vertical deposition method. The ITO glasses were
ultrasonically cleaned with deionized water and ethanol.
After that, ITO glasses were placed vertically into 10
mL aqueous solution containing 1 vol% of polystyrene
microsphere. Subsequently, the apparatus with ITO glasses
were put in an electric oven which had been set to 55 °C for
several days. When the polystyrene microsphere aqueous
solution was completely dried, the colloidal crystal
templates were successfully formed on ITO glasses by self-
assembly process.
2.2 Fabrication of g‑C3N4 IOs and EP g‑C3N4 IOs
The g-C3N4 IOs and EP g-C3N4 IOs were fabricated by
the Sol-gel method. 7.5 mL ethanol and 5 mL acetic acid
were added into the beaker and mixed well, followed by
the addition of different amount of cyanamide(2 M, 4 M,
8  M). The mixture was continuously stirred until the
cyanamide was completely dissolved, then 4 mL tetrabutyl
titanate was added and stirred for 2 h. Finally, 1.5 mL of
water was added dropwise with vigorous magnetic stirring
until the mixture became viscous and the g-C3N4 based on
­TiO2 framework precursor was successfully prepared. The
syntheses of EP g-C3N4 precursor was almost identical with
g-C3N4 precursor except that 4 mL tetrabutyl titanate and
extra 0.52 mL tetraacetoxysilane were added at the same
time. The as-prepared colloidal crystal templates were
first heated to 85 °C for 2 h to strengthen the connection
between neighboring PS spheres and to enhance the
structural stability of the PS opals film. Then the PS opals
templates were soaked in g-C3N4 and EP g-C3N4 precursor
via a peristaltic pump for 10 min and were placed on a hot
plate at 80 °C for drying. The above process was repeated
three times for better infiltration of precursor. Finally, the
templates were sintered at 550 °C with a heating rate of
2 °C/min for 4 h and the g-C3N4 IOs were fabricated. The
EP g-C3N4 structures were immersed in 4 M ammonium
hydrogen fluoride aqueous solution for 15 s after annealing
and the EP g-C3N4 IOs were fabricated.
2.3 Fabrication of ­Bi2O3 IOs and EP g‑C3N4 IOs/Bi2O3
IOs heterostructures
Bi2O3 IOs were also fabricated by the sol-gel method [29].
3.88  g Bi(NO3)3·5H2O was dissolved in 11mL ethylene
Journal of Porous Materials
glycol with ultrasonic irradiation for 30 min. 7 mL ethanol
was added to the above solution, followed by magnetic
stirring for 12 h and the B ­ i2O3 precursor was prepared.
Similarly, the colloidal crystal templates were soaked in
­Bi2O3 precursor via a peristaltic pump for 20 min and were
placed on a hot plate at 50 °C for drying. The B ­ i2O3 IOs
were obtained after sintering the samples at 550 °C for 4 h
with a heating rate of 2 °C/min.
The colloidal crystals filled with EP g-C3N4 precursor
(without annealing) were used as substrate in order to the
fabrication of a new part of colloidal crystals also by the
vertical deposition method. The as-prepared product with
double PS heterostructures was further filled with ­Bi2O3
precursor by sol-gel method as mentioned above. Finally,
the composites were sintered at 550 °C with a heating
rate of 2 °C/min for 4 h and the EP g-C3N4 IO/Bi2O3 IO
heterostructures were successfully synthesized.
2.4 Characterizations and instruments
The morphologies of colloidal crystal templates, EP
g-C3N4 IOs and EP g-C3N4 IOs/Bi2O3 IOs were obtained
by a field-emission scanning electron microscope (SEM,
Hitachi S4800). The chemical information of g-C3N4 IO and
­Bi2O3 IO films were obtained by an X-ray photoelectron
spectroscopy (XPS) with Al-Kα radiation (Thermo
ESCALab250Xi, US). The absorption and reflection
spectra were examined by a microscope (XPL-3230,
Guangdong Optical Instrument) coupled with a fiber at the
c-mount position and a spectrometer (Wyoptics MAX2000,
Shanghai). The phase structure of the prepared B ­ i2O3 IOs
films was analyzed by X-ray diffraction (XRD, Rigaku D/
MAX-2500). The photoelectrochemical performance of
different inverse opal films were measured by a standard
three-electrode photoelectrochemical cell using a CHI660E
electrochemical analysis station (Shanghai Chenghua,
China). The inverse opal films fabricated on ITO glasses
were applied as working electrode, a Pt sheet and saturated
calomel were served as counter-electrode and reference
electrode, respectively. 0.5 M aqueous solution of N­ a2SO4
was used as the electrolyte. A Xenon lamp (CEL-HXF300,
Beijing China Education AuLight Technology Co., Ltd) was
used as the light source.
3 Results and discussions
3.1 g‑C3N4 inverse opals
The morphologies of synthesized colloidal crystals template
and g-C3N4 IOs by scanning electron microscopy (SEM)
are shown in Fig. 1a, b. Figure 1a presents the well-ordered
morphologies of self-assembly colloidal crystals template
with a very narrow particle size distribution. The g-C3N4
IOs fabricated by sol-gel method from colloidal crystals
template are shown in Fig. 1b, revealing a high surface area
and expanded open space which are beneficial to the pho-
tocatalytic process. The average diameter of g-C3N4 IOs
obviously decreases compared with the colloidal crystals
template, on account of the collapse of gel during anneal-
ing process. High-resolution X-ray photoelectron spec-
troscopy (XPS) analysis of g-C3N4 IOs was performed as
shown in Fig. 1c–f. There are two peaks centered at the bind-
ing energy of 458.4 eV and 464.1 eV as shown in Fig. 1c
which can be attributed to ­Ti2p3/2 and T ­ i2p1/2 indicating
the typical ­Ti4+ state. The high-resolution O 1s spectrum
of g-C3N4 IOs has a peak at 529.4 eV corresponding to the
lattice oxygen of ­TiO2. Figure 1e, f show that two major
carbon species and two nitrogen species exist in our prod-
uct, including the s­ p3-bonded carbon in C–C (≈ 284.6 eV)
and N–C = N (≈ 288.2 eV) for C 1s [28]. There are two dif-
ferent peaks for N 1s observed at 398.6 eV and 399.8 eV
originate from O–Ti–N [30] and C = N [31], demonstrating
the successful preparation of g-C3N4 IOs on the basis of
­TiO2 framework. In order to investigate the photocatalytic
performance of g-C3N4 IOs and optimize the weight ratio
of g-C3N4 and ­TiO2, the absorption spectra and photocur-
rent densities of pure ­TiO2 IOs and g-C3N4 IOs with dif-
ferent amount of added cyanamide for g-C3N4(denoted as
2 M g-C3N4 IOs, 4 M g-C3N4 IOs and 8 M ­C3N4 IOs)were
measured as shown in Fig. 1g–i. The synthesis of g-C3N4
tremendously enhances the absorptivity especially in vis-
ible light region. With the increase of amount of added
cyanamide, the enhancement of spectra first increases and
then decreases, reaching the maximum when the amount of
added cyanamide is 4 M. Compared with pure ­TiO2 IOs, the
absorptivity of 4 M g-C3N4 IOs reaches up to approximately
79% at 480 nm and maintains a satisfying value in whole
visible spectrum. Figure 1 h, i show the current densities-
voltage characteristics and transient photocurrent responses
of different products under incident light irradiance at 100
mW/cm2. Consistent with the results of absorption spectra,
4 M g-C3N4 IOs exhibit the best performance, presenting the
photocurrent density of 0.37 mA/cm2. It is 1.28 times that of
2 M g-C3N4 IOs (0.29 mA/cm2) and is almost 4.6 times that
of pure ­TiO2 IO framework (0.08 mA/cm2).
3.2 Enhanced porosity g‑C3N4 inverse opals
Figure 2a presents the surface SEM image of g-C3N4 IOs
with enhanced porosity. The EP g-C3N4 IOs were fabricated
on the basis of ­TiO2/SiO2 framework and then the ­SiO2
was removed by ammonium bifluoride. It is clear that EP
g-C3N4 IOs possess additional mesoporous (red hexagon in
Fig. 2a). The enhanced porosity further increases the surface
area of g-C3N4 IOs. The reflection spectra of g-C3N4 IOs
13

Fig. 1  a and b The SEM images in surface view of a colloidal crys-
tals template, and B  g-C3N4 inverse opals on basis of T ­ iO2 frame-
work. c–f  The XPS spectra of c  Ti2p, d  O 1s, e  C1s, and f  N1s of
g-C3N4 inverse opals. g  The absorption spectra of g-C3N4 inverse
opals with different amount of added cyanamide, and pure T ­ iO2
and EP g-C3N4 IOs fabricated by colloidal crystals template
with average diameter of 385 nm is shown in Fig. 2b. The
reflection peak of g-C3N4 IOs induced by photonic stop gap
is centered at 506 nm while that of EP g-C3N4 IOs is at
486 nm. This blue shift is generated by the decreases of fill-
ing ratio and effective refractive index as there are additional
mesoporous morphologies formed in the whole structure.
The absorption spectra of different products are shown in
Fig. 2c. The enhanced porosity advances the light absorption
performance, attributed to the increased surface area and the
improved light harvesting efficiency. To verify the influence
of structural modulation to g-C3N4 for its photocatalytic per-
formance, the current densities-voltage characteristics and
transient photocurrent responses of g-C3N4 film, g-C3N4 IOs
and EP g-C3N4 IOs were measured as shown in Fig. 2d, e.
From film to inverse opals and finally to enhanced porosity
morphology, the photocurrent densities of different g-C3N4
IOs gradually increase and the EP g-C3N4 IOs present the
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Journal of Porous Materials
inverse opals. h,  i Current densities-voltage characteristics and tran-
sient photocurrent responses at 100 mW/cm2 of g-C3N4 inverse opals
with different amount of added cyanamide, and pure T ­ iO2 inverse
opals
highest photocurrent density (average of 0.042 mA/cm2 in
transient photocurrent responses) under same conditions.
Both ­TiO2 and g-C3N4 have the intrinsic property of reli-
able physicochemical stability. Figure 2e presents that the
photocurrent densities of EP g-C3N4 IOs and g-C3N4 IOs
only reduce a little bit in the first 100 s and then remain the
same value, illustrating the excellent stability of the g-C3N4
photocatalyst on the basis of ­TiO2 framework.
3.3 Bi2O3 inverse opals
The morphology of ­Bi2O3 IOs fabricated by sol-gel method
is shown in Fig. 3a, presenting an ordered porous structure
with the average diameter of 219 nm. Figure 3b, c show
the high-resolution XPS analysis of ­Bi2O3 IOs. Figure 3b
shows two individual peaks of Bi 4f centered at 158.2 eV
and 163.4 eV, which are corresponding to Bi 4­ f3/2 and Bi
­4f5/2 [29]. Moreover, in Fig. 3c, there are two peaks of O 1s
Journal of Porous Materials

Fig. 2  a The surface SEM image of EP g-C3N4 inverse opals. b The voltage characteristics and transient photocurrent responses at 100
reflection spectra of g-C3N4 inverse opals and EP g-C3N4 inverse mW/cm2 of g-C3N4 film, g-C3N4 inverse opals and EP g-C3N4 inverse
opals. c The absorption spectra of g-C3N4 inverse opals, EP g-C3N4 opals
inverse opals, and pure ­TiO2 inverse opals. d,  e  Current densities-

Fig. 3  a  The surface SEM image of ­Bi2O3 inverse opals. b,  c  The ferent particle sizes. f, g Current densities-voltage characteristics and
XPS spectrum of b  Bi4f, and c O 1s in B ­ i2O3 inverse opals. d  The transient photocurrent responses at 100 mW/cm2 of ­Bi2O3 inverse
XRD pattern of B ­ i2O3 inverse opals. e  The reflectance spectra of opals prepared by colloidal crystals template with different particle
­Bi2O3 inverse opals prepared by colloidal crystals template with dif- sizes

13

centered at the binding energy of 528.9 eV and 530.4 eV,
corresponding to Bi–O bond and surface hydroxyl group
in the ­Bi2O3 IOs. The XRD pattern of ­Bi2O3 IOs annealed
at 550 °C is shown in Fig. 3d. The eight main diffraction
peaks at 2 θ of 24.5°, 28.1°, 28.6°, 33,4°, 36.0°, 47.1°,
54.9°, and 56.2° are found, which could be assigned to the
(− 102), (111), (120), (012), (− 212), (041), (− 241) and
(− 224) crystal planes of typical α-Bi2O3. All the results
from Fig. 3a–d confirm the successful preparation of the
­Bi2O3 IOs with favorable quality. To investigate the influ-
ence of photonic band gap arising from periodic inverse
opals structure on photocatalytic performance, the reflection
spectra and photocurrent densities of B­ i2O3 IOs with differ-
ent diameters were measured as shown in Fig. 3e–g. There
is a blue shift for PBG peaks as the diameters reduce as
shown in Fig. 3e. The PBG peak of ­Bi2O3 IOs with average
diameter of 303 nm is centered at 525 nm, which means that
its high frequency edge of photonic band gap (400–450 nm)
is coincident with the absorption peak of B ­ i2O3 in visible
light region. This coincidence makes it capable for 303 nm
­Bi2O3 IOs to promote the utilization ability of incident light
on account of the slow light effect. The current densities-
voltage characteristics and transient photocurrent responses
of ­Bi2O3 IOs with different diameters further certify this
promotion as shown in Fig. 3f, g. 303 nm B ­ i2O3 IOs present
the highest photocurrent density (0.008 mA/cm2 on average
in transient photocurrent responses) as seen in Fig. 3g, while
the 219 and 238 nm ­Bi2O3 IOs are of around 0.006 mA/cm2.
3.4 Enhanced porosity g‑C3N4 inverse opals/Bi2O3
inverse opals heterostructures
The heterostructures composed of two different inverse
opals were successfully fabricated as shown in Fig.  4a.
The appropriate band structures of g-C3N4 and B ­ i2O3 make
them possible candidates for the fabrication of Z-scheme
heterojunctions, which is an effective strategy to solve the
high carrier recombination rate and enhance the photocata-
lytic efficiency. Figure 4b shows the absorption spectra of
EP g-C3N4 IOs, ­Bi2O3 IOs, and their heterostructure com-
posites, revealing that the construction of heterostructures
superimpose their respective light responses and enhance
the light absorption among visible-light range. The X-ray
diffraction (XRD) spectrum of heterostructures is shown in
Fig. 4c. The diffraction peaks at 24.6°, 27.0°, 28.2°, 33,2°,
35.1°, 35.6°, 37.1°, 46.5° and 48.7° are attributed to the
(− 102), (111), (− 211), (022), (− 212), (031), (112), (041)
and (− 104) crystal planes of α-Bi2O3, while the peaks at
25.7°, 37.8° and 54.9° could be assigned to the (101), (004)
and (211) crystal planes of ­TiO2. The strongest peak at
2θ of 27.6° corresponds to the (002) diffraction of typical
g-C3N4. The XRD pattern further confirms the successfully
construction of the heterostructures. The enhanced light
13
Journal of Porous Materials
absorption is also manifested by the photocurrent densi-
ties as shown in Fig. 4d, e. The comparison for transient
photocurrent responses of different products with light on
and off are displayed in Fig. 4e. EP g-C3N4 IO/Bi2O3 IO
heterostructures present the highest transient photocurrent
response (approximately 0.06 mA/cm2), better than both of
the individual inverse-opal structure (0.042 mA/cm2 for EP
g-C3N4 IOs, 0.01 mA/cm2 for ­Bi2O3 IOs). To evaluate the
photocatalytic performance of different samples, the solar-
to-hydrogen (STH) efficiency (η) was calculated from linear
sweeps using the Eq. 
𝜂 = I(1.23 − V)∕Jlight (1)
where V is the applied bias vs. RHE, I is the photocurrent
density at the measured bias, and Jlight is the irradiance
intensity of 100 mW/cm2, as shown in Fig.  4f. The EP
g-C3N4 IO/Bi2O3 IO heterostructures exhibit a higher STH
efficiency compared with the individual EP g-C 3N4 IOs
and ­Bi2O3 IOs. The construction of g-C3N4 and B ­ i2O3 in
inverse-opal structures enhances the visible light absorptions
and utilizations. Figure 4 g presents a simple schematic
diagram of mechanism for the as-prepared inverse-opal
heterostructures. There are two kinds of interfaces in the
whole composites, which are T ­ iO2/g-C3N4 interface and
g-C 3N 4/Bi 2O 3 interface. The T ­ iO 2/g-C 3N 4 interface is
inside the same photonic-crystal structure and plays a
dominant role in advancing the photocatalytic performance
by suppressing the recombination of photogenerated
carriers, while the g-C3N4/Bi2O3 interface is between the
two different photonic-crystal structures. Because the area
of g-C3N4/Bi2O3 interface is less than that of T ­ iO2/g-C3N4
interface, no characterization verifying the Z-scheme
heterojunction is presented. Although only a potential
Z-scheme heterojunction is demonstrated, the fabrication
of g-C3N4 and B ­ i2O3 into inverse-opal structures enhances
the optical absorption in visible light region and the
related photocurrent densities. In addition, the slow-light
effect in photonic band edge of inverse opals also works
for the enhanced photocurrent densities. In addition, the
development of inverse opals showing the direct Z-scheme
heterojunction performance is still in progressing.
4 Conclusion
In summary, the well-ordered three-dimensional g-C3N4
inverse-opal structures with enhanced porosity were
successfully prepared by a simple sol-gel method and
were fabricated into a potential Z-scheme heterojunctions
composites with ­Bi2O3 inverse opals. The enhanced porosity
attributed to the introduced additional mesoporous further
increases the surface area of g-C3N4 on the basis of inverse
Journal of Porous Materials
Fig. 4  a  The cross-section SEM image of heterostructures of EP
g-C3N4 inverse opals and ­Bi2O3 inverse opals. b The absorption spec-
tra of EP g-C3N4 inverse opals prepared by 238 nm colloidal crystals,
­Bi2O3 inverse opals prepared by 303 nm colloidal crystals, and their
heterostructures composites. c The XRD pattern of heterostructures.
d,  e  Current densities-voltage characteristics and transient photo-
opals and promotes the utilization ability of incident light,
resulting in the advancement of photocatalytic efficiency.
The EP g-C3N4 IOs exhibit better performance either in
absorption spectrum or in photoelectrochemistry property.
In addition, three-dimensional B ­ i2O3 inverse opals were
synthesized and the influence of photonic band gap was
investigated for photon management. When the high
frequency edge of photonic band gap peak is coincident
with the absorption peak of ­Bi2O3 in visible-light region,
the ­Bi2O3 IOs present the highest photocurrent density.
Finally, the EP g-C3N4 IOs and ­Bi2O3 IOs were fabricated
into heterostructures, demonstrating the best photocatalytic
performance than the two individual materials. The
current responses at 100 mW/cm2 of different samples. f  Calculated
photoconversion efficiencies for the EP g-C3N4 inverse opals and
the heterostructures composites. g Schematic diagram of mechanism
for photocatalytic reaction and the transfer and separation of photo-
induced charges in the fabricated composites
enhancement benefits from better photo-generated carriers
separation efficiency and superimposed light responses. This
work offers a new strategy to fabricate the g-C3N4 inverse
opals in film form and its heterostructures by a simple
method and obtains highly efficient photocatalysts.
Acknowledgements  This work was supported by National Science
Foundation of China under grants of Nos. 52173272, 51772021.
Declarations 
Conflict of interest  There are no conflicts to declare.
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 Journal of Porous Materials

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