Preparation strategies, properties highlights, and emerging applications across environmental, biological, and energy industries of silver-loaded graphitic carbon nitride: A critical review

In light of escalating environmental pollution and tremendous energy shortage, the development of multifunctional materials with diverse applications across biomedical and energy production platforms has become imperative. Among this domain, nanostructured heterogeneous composites based on semiconductors are exclusively promising owing to their distinct configurations. Notably, graphitic carbon nitride (g-C₃N₄ (CN)) has drawn substantial interest as a sustainable candidate with surface functionality, electron-rich nature, and interconnected conjugation system along the polymeric matrix. To address the remaining limitations in sub-optimal visible light absorption and rapid charge recombination, the decoration of plasmonic metals, particularly silver (Ag) nanostructures, on bare CN has been reported to induce considerable synergistic promotions. This review highlights the major advancements and challenges in designing silver-loaded graphitic carbon nitride (Ag/CN (ACN)). Fundamentals in typical synthetic strategies, such as hydrothermal, co-precipitation, or chemical reduction, for ACN heterostructures are summarized. The appearance of Ag also influences the inherent properties of CN, as emphasized through alterations in structural as well as electronic behaviors in many studies. We expect that this study can deepen insights into multiple extending applications of ACN regarding environmental, biological, and energy industries, thanks to its favorable well-rounded attributions.