Issue 2, 2024

Construction of a hierarchical CoP@ZnIn2S4 heterojunction for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution

Abstract

To relieve the present energy scarcity and environmental challenges, hydrogen formation via water decomposition utilizing sunlight is desirable. However, due to poor charge separation and low hydrogen production efficiency, conventional semiconductor photocatalysts are limited in practical applications. Herein, by introducing a spatial decoupling strategy, a core–shell CoP@ZnIn2S4 heterojunction photocatalyst is built through in situ formation of two-dimensional ZnIn2S4 (ZIS) nanosheets on a spiky CoP surface, achieving effective separation of the redox sites, resulting in a substantial enhancement of photocatalytic hydrogen formation efficiency. Notably, the optimized 5-CoP@ZIS photocatalyst exhibits a hydrogen production rate of 14.98 mmol g−1 h−1 with full solar spectrum illumination, which is 6.3-fold higher than the individual ZIS. These results exhibit that the increased efficiency is explained by the creation of the CoP@ZIS core–shell heterostructure, which strongly prevents the self-assembly and aggregation of the ZIS nanosheets, and offers enhanced light absorption and an abundance of reaction sites. The close interfacial contact facilitates the light-induced electron separation and transfer from ZIS to CoP, which synergistically yields an efficient hydrogen production performance. This work offers a highly effective method for the fabrication of powerful photocatalysts to realize light energy conversion.

Graphical abstract: Construction of a hierarchical CoP@ZnIn2S4 heterojunction for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
05 Sep 2023
Accepted
05 Oct 2023
First published
06 Oct 2023
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

RSC Appl. Interfaces, 2024,1, 222-232

Construction of a hierarchical CoP@ZnIn2S4 heterojunction for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution

Y. Liu, L. Ding, Q. Xu, Y. Ma and J. Hu, RSC Appl. Interfaces, 2024, 1, 222 DOI: 10.1039/D3LF00157A

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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