Synergy of heterojunction and interfacial strain for boosting photocatalytic H2 evolution of black phosphorus nanosheets

Li Shi; Ye Wang; Yingkui Yan; Fei Liu; Zongyu Huang; Xiaohui Ren; Hongwei Zhang; Yanshuo Li; Jinhua Ye

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2022.07.097

Synergy of heterojunction and interfacial strain for boosting photocatalytic H₂ evolution of black phosphorus nanosheets

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2022 Dec:627:969-977. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2022.07.097. Epub 2022 Jul 20.

Authors

Li Shi¹, Ye Wang², Yingkui Yan², Fei Liu³, Zongyu Huang³, Xiaohui Ren⁴, Hongwei Zhang⁵, Yanshuo Li⁶, Jinhua Ye⁷

Affiliations

¹ School of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, Ningbo University, Ningbo, Zhejiang 315211, PR China. Electronic address: shili1@nbu.edu.cn.
² School of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, Ningbo University, Ningbo, Zhejiang 315211, PR China.
³ School of Physics and Optoelectronic, Hunan Key Laboratory for Micro-Nano Energy Materials and Devices, Xiangtan University, Xiangtan, Hunan 411105, PR China.
⁴ The State Key Laboratory of Refractories and Metallurgy, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430081, China.
⁵ Biogas Institute of Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Key Laboratory of Development and Application of Rural Renewable Energy, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Chengdu 610041, China.
⁶ School of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, Ningbo University, Ningbo, Zhejiang 315211, PR China. Electronic address: liyanshuo@nbu.edu.cn.
⁷ International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan.

PMID: 35905583
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2022.07.097

Abstract

As an emerging post-graphene two-dimensional material, black phosphorus (BP) has attracted enormous interest as a promising cocatalyst for photocatalytic hydrogen (H₂) evolution, however, the activity of either pristine bulk or BP nanosheets is far from satisfactory. Herein, we present an effective strategy to greatly boost the H₂ evolution performance of BP via applying the synergistic effect of heterojunction and interfacial lattice strain. A multilayered heterostructure coupling BP nanosheets and nickel oxide (NiO) nanosheets with abundant interface P-Ni and PO bonds is synthesized and utilized as a proof-of-concept material for our design. Both the experimental and theoretical results have revealed that the strain is formed in BP-NiO multilayered heterostructure. The generated lattice strain induces the charge redistribution at the interface between BP and NiO, which leads to the improved electron transfer efficiency and favorable H* adsorption kinetics for photocatalytic H₂ evolution reaction. As a result, the BP-NiO heterostructure with strain effect exhibits much enhanced photocatalytic H₂ evolution activity in the presence of Eosin Y (EY) as photosensitizer, exceeding that of zero-strained BP/NiO heterostructure and many other reported noble-metal-free cocatalyst.

Keywords: Black phosphorus; Cocatalyst; Lattice strain; Photocatalytic H(2) evolution.