ZIF-8 derived N-doped carbon polyhedron as nonmetallic co-catalyst for photocatalytic hydrogen production

• Published in: Fuel (Guildford) 2024-10, Vol.374, p.132475, Article 132475
• Main Authors: Gao, Ze, Guan, Xiangjiu, Zhang, Tuo, Dong, Yuchen, Zhu, Bin, Zeng, Wengao, Ye, Xiaoyuan, Guo, Liejin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Co-catalyst; Hydrogen production; N-doped carbon; Photocatalysis
• ISSN: 0016-2361
• DOI: 10.1016/j.fuel.2024.132475

[Display omitted] •A promising nonmetallic co-catalyst N-doped carbon polyhedron (NCP) is designed.•NCP promotes electron transfer and provides more reactive sites for H2 production.•H2 production activity of NCP@CdS is enhanced as 8.3 times that of pristine CdS. Loading co-catalyst with good conductivity is a common method to restrain carrier recombination and accelerate water splitting kinetics. However, commonly used metal-based co-catalysts faced with expensive price, resource shortage and environmental pollution problems. In this article, N-doped carbon polyhedron (NCP) is identified as a novel nonmetallic co-catalyst which is obtained by pyrolysis of a zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF-8). The composite NCP@CdS photocatalyst is prepared by hydrothermal method to synthesis NCP co-catalyst loaded CdS. Therein, the obtained NCP@CdS exhibites excellent photocatalytic performance. Under visible light irradiation (λ > 420 nm), the hydrogen generation rate of NCP@CdS is up to at 13.89 mmol g-1h−1, which is 8.3 times as that of CdS. In addition, NCP also achieves the positive effect of promoting photocatalytic hydrogen production under different sacrificial systems. It is demonstrated through a series of characterizations and analyses that N-doped graphitic carbon skeleton has played several positive roles, including promoting charge separation by providing electron transfer channels and serving abundant reactive sites with unique N-structure.