Bimetal MOF-derived NiFe-P nanocomposites coupled with Cu3P nanoparticles to construct tandem electron transfer channels for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution

Abstract

Finely modulated light-induced charge separation and transfer is a central challenge to achieve efficient photocatalysis. Although progress has been made in this field, most of the previous research works focused on the separation or migration of photogenerated carriers but did not build a bridge between the two. How to realize the strong driving and precise migration of carriers has become the focus of our work. We report an ingeniously designed ternary heterojunction. Taking NiFe-MOF as the “parent material”, the FeP4/NixPy heterojunction is derived in situ while maintaining the frame structure through gas-solid reaction, and finally the Z-type electron transfer is realized. With Cu3P anchoring spindle matrix, an electron transport tunnel is opened up in Cu3P/FeP4/NixPy ternary heterojunction under the action of p-n heterojunction built-in electric field driving and accurate energy band matching. The strong driving force of the built-in electric field provides an inexhaustible power for the transmission of electrons, and the fine series of electron transmission channels realizes the precise transmission of electrons. The above fine design makes the perfect fit between the built-in electric field and the electron transfer channel, which not only effectively improves the embarrassing situation of insufficient electron driving force of hydrogen evolution reaction in the previous research, but also makes up for the weakening of semiconductor reduction ability caused by the construction of traditional p-n heterostructures. This research work provides a new idea for the construction of multiple heterostructures and the design of fine interface engineering in the future.