Abstract
We have realized in-situ growth of ultrathin ZnIn2S4 nanosheets on the sheet-like g-C3N4 surfaces to construct a “sheet-on-sheet” hierarchical heterostructure. The as-synthesized ZnIn2S4/g-C3N4 heterojunction nanosheets exhibit remarkably enhancement on the photocatalytic activity for H2 production. This enhanced photoactivity is mainly attributed to the efficient interfacial transfer of photoinduced electrons and holes from g-C3N4 to ZnIn2S4 nanosheets, resulting in the decreased charge recombination on g-C3N4 nanosheets and the increased amount of photoinduced charge carriers in ZnIn2S4 nanosheets. Meanwhile, the increased surface-active-sites and extended light absorption of g-C3N4 nanosheets after the decoration of ZnIn2S4 nanosheets may also play a certain role for the enhancement of photocatalytic activity. Further investigations by the surface photovoltage spectroscopy and transient photoluminescence spectroscopy demonstrate that ZnIn2S4/g-C3N4 heterojunction nanosheets considerable boost the charge transfer efficiency, therefore improve the probability of photoinduced charge carriers to reach the photocatalysts surfaces for highly efficient H2 production.
Highlights
Behavior can be promoted through tailoring the secondary nanostructures of heterostructural photocatalysts[25,26,27]
It implies that in-situ growth of ZnIn2S4 nanosheets onto g-C3N4 nanosheets could noticeably improve the photocatalytic activities on H2 production
The enhanced photoactivity on H2 production could be explained by two main reasons: (1) the reduced recombination process of photoinduced charge carriers on g-C3N4 and increased amount of charge carriers on ZnIn2S4 based on the interfacial charge transfer; (2) the higher specific-surface-area and enhanced light absorption for the unique “sheet-on-sheet” heterostructure as aforementioned
Summary
Behavior can be promoted through tailoring the secondary nanostructures of heterostructural photocatalysts[25,26,27]. The 2D sheet-like ZnIn2S4 nanostructures could be anchored onto the active or flexible 2D substrates, such as F-doped SnO2 (FTO) thin film and reduced graphene oxide (RGO) nanosheets, to form the “sheet-on-sheet” type heterostructure. This kind of hierarchical nanostructure usually exhibits a high surface area, strong light harvesting, and efficient charge mobility due to its unique structure advantages[25,26,29,31,33,34]. By taking of the above features, the as-synthesized ZnIn2S4/g-C3N4 heterojunction nanosheets exhibit a significantly enhanced visible-light photocatlaytic H2 production performance as compared to the single component of ZnIn2S4 or g-C3N4 nanosheets
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