Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution from Water Splitting Using Core-Shell Structured Cu/ZnS/COF Composites

• Published in: Nanomaterials (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2021-12, Vol.11 (12), p.3380
• Main Authors: Wang, Wenmin, Li, Bing, Yang, Hsin-Ju, Liu, Yuzhi, Gurusamy, Lakshmanan, Karuppasamy, Lakshmanan, Wu, Jerry J
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adsorption; Alternative energy sources; Alternative fuels; Catalysts; Clean fuels; Climate change; composite materials; Conduction bands; Core-shell structure; Crystal structure; Ethanol; Experiments; Flux density; Fossil fuels; Gases; Global warming; Hydrogen; Hydrogen evolution; Hydrogen production; Microspheres; Morphology; Nitrogen; Particle size; Photocatalysis; Porous materials; Ratios; Recombination; Solar energy; Solvents; Spectrum analysis; Thin films; Water splitting; Zinc sulfide
• ISSN: 2079-4991; 2079-4991
• DOI: 10.3390/nano11123380

Hydrogen is considered to be a very efficient and clean fuel since it is a renewable and non-polluting gas with a high energy density; thus, it has drawn much attention as an alternative fuel, in order to alleviate the issue of global warming caused by the excess use of fossil fuels. In this work, a novel Cu/ZnS/COF composite photocatalyst with a core-shell structure was synthesized for photocatalytic hydrogen production via water splitting. The Cu/ZnS/COF microspheres formed by Cu/ZnS crystal aggregation were covered by a microporous thin-film COF with a porous network structure, where COF was also modified by the dual-effective redox sites of C=O and N=N. The photocatalytic hydrogen production results showed that the hydrogen production rate reached 278.4 µmol g h , which may be attributed to its special structure, which has a large number of active sites, a more negative conduction band than the reduction of H to H , and the ability to inhibit the recombination of electron-hole pairs. Finally, a possible mechanism was proposed to effectively explain the improved photocatalytic performance of the photocatalytic system. The present work provides a new concept, in order to construct a highly efficient hydrogen production catalyst and broaden the applications of ZnS-based materials.