g-C3N4/ZnCdS heterojunction for efficient visible light-driven photocatalytic hydrogen production

Tianyu Bai; Xiaofan Shi; Ming Liu; Hui Huang; Jijie Zhang; Xian-He Bu

doi:10.1039/d1ra05894k

g-C₃N₄/ZnCdS heterojunction for efficient visible light-driven photocatalytic hydrogen production

RSC Adv. 2021 Nov 26;11(60):38120-38125. doi: 10.1039/d1ra05894k. eCollection 2021 Nov 23.

Authors

Tianyu Bai¹, Xiaofan Shi¹, Ming Liu¹, Hui Huang¹, Jijie Zhang^{1

2}, Xian-He Bu^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ School of Materials Science and Engineering, National Institute for Advanced Materials, Nankai University Tianjin 300350 P. R. China zhangjijie@nankai.edu.cn buxh@nankai.edu.cn.
² Frontiers Science Center for New Organic Matter, Nankai University Tianjin 300350 P. R. China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Elemento-Organic Chemistry, College of Chemistry, Nankai University Tianjin 300071 P. R. China.

Abstract

To suppress the aggregation behavior caused by the high surface energy of quantum dots (QDs), ZnCdS QDs were grown in situ on a g-C₃N₄ support. During the growth process, the QDs tightly adhered to the support surface. The ZnCdS QDs were prepared by low-temperature sulfurization and cation exchange with a zeolitic imidazolate framework precursor under mild conditions. The heterojunction of g-C₃N₄/ZnCdS-2 (CN/ZCS-2, with a g-C₃N₄ to ZIF-8 ratio of 2.0) not only showed excellent optical absorption performance, abundant reactive sites, and a close contact interface but also effectively separated the photogenerated electrons and holes, which greatly improved its photocatalytic hydrogen production performance. Under visible light irradiation (wavelength > 420 nm) without a noble metal cocatalyst, the hydrogen evolution rate of the CN/ZCS-2 heterojunction reached 1467.23 μmol g^-1 h^-1, and the durability and chemical stability were extraordinarily high.