Microwave-assisted synthesis of NiS2 nanostructures for supercapacitors and cocatalytic enhancing photocatalytic H2 production

Huan Pang; Chengzhen Wei; Xuexue Li; Guochang Li; Yahui Ma; Sujuan Li; Jing Chen; Jiangshan Zhang

doi:10.1038/srep03577

Microwave-assisted synthesis of NiS2 nanostructures for supercapacitors and cocatalytic enhancing photocatalytic H2 production

Sci Rep. 2014 Jan 6:4:3577. doi: 10.1038/srep03577.

Authors

Huan Pang¹, Chengzhen Wei², Xuexue Li², Guochang Li², Yahui Ma², Sujuan Li², Jing Chen², Jiangshan Zhang²

Affiliations

¹ 1] College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Anyang Normal University, Anyang, Henan 455000, China [2] State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry, Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210093, China.
² College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Anyang Normal University, Anyang, Henan 455000, China.

Abstract

Uniform NiS2 nanocubes are successfully synthesized with a microwave-assisted method. Interestingly, NiS2 nanocubes, nanospheres and nanoparticles are obtained by controlling microwave reaction time. NiS2 nanomaterials are primarily applied to supercapacitors and cocatalytic enhancing photocatalytic H2 production. Different morphologies of NiS2 nanostructures show different electrochemical and cocatalytic enhancing H2 production activities. Benefited novel nanostructures, NiS2 nanocube electrodes show a large specific capacitance (695 F g(-1) at 1.25 A g(-1)) and excellent cycling performance (the retention 93.4% of initial specific capacitance after 3000 cycles). More importantly, NiS2 nanospheres show highly cocatalytic enhancing photocatalytic for H2 evolution, in which the photocatalytic H2 production is up to 3400 μmol during 12 hours under irradiation of visible light (λ>420 nm) with an average H2 production rate of 283 μmol h(-1).