In situ decoration of ZnS nanoparticles with Ti3C2 MXene nanosheets for efficient photocatalytic hydrogen evolution

Luna Tie; Siyu Yang; Chongfei Yu; Hui Chen; Yanmei Liu; Shuying Dong; Jingyu Sun; Jianhui Sun

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2019.03.014

In situ decoration of ZnS nanoparticles with Ti₃C₂ MXene nanosheets for efficient photocatalytic hydrogen evolution

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2019 Jun 1:545:63-70. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2019.03.014. Epub 2019 Mar 6.

Authors

Luna Tie¹, Siyu Yang¹, Chongfei Yu², Hui Chen¹, Yanmei Liu¹, Shuying Dong¹, Jingyu Sun³, Jianhui Sun⁴

Affiliations

¹ School of Environment, Henan Normal University, Key Laboratory for Yellow River and Huai River Water Environmental and Pollution Control, Ministry of Education, Henan Key Laboratory for Environmental Pollution Control, Xinxiang, Henan 453007, China.
² School of Environment, Henan Normal University, Key Laboratory for Yellow River and Huai River Water Environmental and Pollution Control, Ministry of Education, Henan Key Laboratory for Environmental Pollution Control, Xinxiang, Henan 453007, China. Electronic address: chongfei1987@163.com.
³ School of Environment, Henan Normal University, Key Laboratory for Yellow River and Huai River Water Environmental and Pollution Control, Ministry of Education, Henan Key Laboratory for Environmental Pollution Control, Xinxiang, Henan 453007, China; College of Energy, Soochow Institute for Energy and Materials Innovations, Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory for Advanced Carbon Materials and Wearable Energy Technologies Soochow University, Suzhou 215006, China. Electronic address: sunjy86@suda.edu.cn.
⁴ School of Environment, Henan Normal University, Key Laboratory for Yellow River and Huai River Water Environmental and Pollution Control, Ministry of Education, Henan Key Laboratory for Environmental Pollution Control, Xinxiang, Henan 453007, China. Electronic address: sunjhhj@163.com.

PMID: 30875508
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2019.03.014

Abstract

Seeking highly-efficient and cost-effective photocatalyst remains key to boosting photocatalytic H₂ evolution activity. Herein we have designed an innovative, non-heavy-metal-based hybrid photocatalyst via in-situ decoration of ZnS nanoparticles with Ti₃C₂ MXene nanosheets toward enhanced photocatalytic H₂ production. The incorporation of Ti₃C₂ essentially promotes the charge transfer and extends the lifetime of photo-induced carriers, thereby resulting in an augmented H₂ production yield of 502.6 μmol g^-1 h^-1 under optimal conditions, being almost 4-fold higher than pure ZnS (124.6 μmol g^-1 h^-1). Thus, this work has demonstrated ZnS/MXene photocatalytic as a promising candidate for hydrogen generation to boost the entire clean energy system and provided a new insight into further broadening the water splitting application of MXene-based materials.

Keywords: Hydrogen generation; Optical analysis; Photocatalytic; Ti(3)C(2) MXene; ZnS.