Molybdenum disulfide quantum dots directing zinc indium sulfide heterostructures for enhanced visible light hydrogen production

Yang Liu; Chao-Fan Li; Xiao-Yun Li; Wen-Bei Yu; Wen-Da Dong; Heng Zhao; Zhi-Yi Hu; Zhao Deng; Chao Wang; Si-Jia Wu; Hao Chen; Jing Liu; Zhao Wang; Li-Hua Chen; Yu Li; Bao-Lian Su

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2019.05.001

Molybdenum disulfide quantum dots directing zinc indium sulfide heterostructures for enhanced visible light hydrogen production

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2019 Sep 1:551:111-118. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2019.05.001. Epub 2019 May 2.

Authors

Yang Liu¹, Chao-Fan Li², Xiao-Yun Li³, Wen-Bei Yu⁴, Wen-Da Dong¹, Heng Zhao¹, Zhi-Yi Hu², Zhao Deng¹, Chao Wang¹, Si-Jia Wu¹, Hao Chen¹, Jing Liu¹, Zhao Wang¹, Li-Hua Chen¹, Yu Li⁵, Bao-Lian Su⁶

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology, 122 Luoshi Road, 430070 Wuhan, Hubei, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology, 122 Luoshi Road, 430070 Wuhan, Hubei, China; Nanostructure Research Centre (NRC), Wuhan University of Technology, 122 Luoshi Road, 430070 Wuhan, Hubei, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Silicate Materials for Architectures, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China. Electronic address: xiaoyunli2015@whut.edu.cn.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology, 122 Luoshi Road, 430070 Wuhan, Hubei, China; Cambridge Graphene Centre, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0FA, UK.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology, 122 Luoshi Road, 430070 Wuhan, Hubei, China; Nanostructure Research Centre (NRC), Wuhan University of Technology, 122 Luoshi Road, 430070 Wuhan, Hubei, China. Electronic address: yu.li@whut.edu.cn.
⁶ State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology, 122 Luoshi Road, 430070 Wuhan, Hubei, China; Laboratory of Inorganic Materials Chemistry (CMI), University of Namur, 61 rue de Bruxelles, B-5000 Namur, Belgium.

PMID: 31078096
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2019.05.001

Abstract

Photocatalytic hydrogen (H₂) production based on semiconductors is important to utilize solar light for clean energy and environment. Herein, we report a visible light responsive heterostructure, designed and constructed by molybdenum disulfide quantum dots (MoS₂-QDs) in-situ seeds-directing growth and self-assemble of zinc indium sulfide (ZnIn₂S₄) nanosheet to ensure their full contact through a simple one-step solvothermal method for highly improved visible light H₂ production. The MoS₂-QDs in-situ seeds-directing ZnIn₂S₄ heterostructure not only builds heterojunctions between MoS₂ and ZnIn₂S₄ to spatially separate the photogenerated electrons and holes, but also serves as the active sites trapping photogenerated electrons to facilitate H₂ evolution. As a result, MoS₂-QDs/ZnIn₂S₄ exhibits high photocatalytic activity for H₂ production, and the optimized 2 wt% MoS₂-QDs/ZnIn₂S₄ (2MoS₂-QDs/ZnIn₂S₄) heterostructure exhibits the highest H₂ evolution rate of 7152 umol·h^-1·g^-1 under visible light, ∼9 times of pure ZnIn₂S₄. Our strategy here could shed some lights on developing noble-metal free heterostructures for highly efficient photocatalytic H₂ production.

Keywords: Heterostructure; MoS(2); Photocatalytic hydrogen production; Quantum dots; ZnIn(2)S(4).