Oxygen vacancy rich Cu2O based composite material with nitrogen doped carbon as matrix for photocatalytic H2 production and organic pollutant removalElectronic supplementary information (ESI) available: ESI for this article is given via a link at the end of the docum: crystal and refinement; selected bond lengths and angles of CP; elemental contents of Cu/Cu2O@NC; comparison of H2 production rate; X-ray crystallography of CP; TGA curve of CuCP; XPS survey and C 1s of Cu/Cu2O@NC; UV-vis spectra o

A nitrogen doped carbon matrix supported Cu 2 O composite material ( Cu/Cu 2 O@NC ) was fabricated successfully with a coordination polymer as precursor through calcination. In this composite material, Cu 2 O particles with a size of about 6-10 nm were dispersed evenly in the nitrogen doped carbon matrix. After calcination, some coordinated nitrogen atoms were doped in the lattice of Cu 2 O and replace oxygen atoms, thus generating a large number of oxygen vacancies. In Cu/Cu 2 O@NC , the existence of oxygen vacancies has been confirmed by electron spin resonance (ESR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Under visible light irradiation, Cu/Cu 2 O@NC exhibits excellent H 2 production with the rate of 379.6 μmol h −1 g −1 . Its photocatalytic activity affects organic dyes, such as Rhodamine B (RhB) and methyl orange (MO). In addition to photocatalysis, Cu/Cu 2 O@NC also exhibits striking catalytic activity in reductive conversion of 4-nitrophenol to 4-aminophenol with in presence of sodium borohydride (NaBH 4 ). The conversion efficiency reaches almost 100% in 250 s with the quantity of Cu/Cu 2 O@NC as low as 5 mg. The outstanding H 2 production and organic pollutants removal are attributed to the oxygen vacancy. We expect that Cu/Cu 2 O@NC will find its way as a new resource for hydrogen energy as well as a promising material in water purification. A new strategy was explored to obtain oxygen vacancy rich Cu 2 O based photocatalyst with nitrogen doped carbon as the matrix through the calcination of coordination polymer precursor.