A metal sulfide photocatalyst composed of ubiquitous elements for solar hydrogen production.

Y Shiga,M Miyauchi,N Srinivasan,S Koyasu,E Sakai,N Umezawa

doi:10.1039/c6cc03199d

Abstract

A visible-light-sensitive tin sulfide photocatalyst was designed based on a ubiquitous element strategy and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Computational analysis suggested that tin monosulfide (SnS) would be more efficient than SnS2 as a photocathode for hydrogen production because of the low ionization potential and weak ionic character of SnS. To test this experimentally, nanoparticles of SnS were loaded onto a mesoporous electrode using a wet chemical method, and the bandgap of the synthesized SnS quantum dots was found to be tunable by adjusting the number of successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR) cycles, which controls the magnitude of the quantum confinement effect. Efficient hydrogen production was achieved when the bandgap of SnS was wider than that of the bulk form.

Highlights

A visible-light-sensitive tin sulfide photocatalyst was designed based on a ubiquitous element strategy and density functional theory (DFT) calculations
Computational analysis suggested that tin monosulfide (SnS) would be more efficient than SnS2 as a photocathode for hydrogen production because of the low ionization potential and weak ionic character of SnS
Nanoparticles of SnS were loaded onto a mesoporous electrode using a wet chemical method, and the bandgap of the synthesized SnS quantum dots was found to be tunable by adjusting the number of successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR) cycles, which controls the magnitude of the quantum confinement effect

Summary

Introduction

A visible-light-sensitive tin sulfide photocatalyst was designed based on a ubiquitous element strategy and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Based on our DFT calculations, SnS was predicted to be potentially useful as a photocathode for hydrogen production, SnS is unable to evolve oxygen from water. With increasing number of SILAR cycles, the absorption of the SnS particles shifted towards lower energy, a property that was attributed to the quantum confinement effect.

Results

Conclusion