Photocatalytic hydrogen evolution from glycerol-water mixture under visible light over zinc indium sulfide (ZnIn2S4) nanosheets grown on bismuth oxychloride (BiOCl) microplates

Onur Cavdar; Mateusz Baluk; Anna Malankowska; Andrzej Żak; Wojciech Lisowski; Tomasz Klimczuk; Adriana Zaleska-Medynska

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2023.02.129

Photocatalytic hydrogen evolution from glycerol-water mixture under visible light over zinc indium sulfide (ZnIn₂S₄) nanosheets grown on bismuth oxychloride (BiOCl) microplates

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2023 Jun 15:640:578-587. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.02.129. Epub 2023 Mar 2.

Authors

Onur Cavdar¹, Mateusz Baluk², Anna Malankowska², Andrzej Żak³, Wojciech Lisowski⁴, Tomasz Klimczuk⁵, Adriana Zaleska-Medynska²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Environmental Technology, Faculty of Chemistry, University of Gdansk, Gdansk, Poland. Electronic address: onur.cavdar@phdstud.ug.edu.pl.
² Department of Environmental Technology, Faculty of Chemistry, University of Gdansk, Gdansk, Poland.
³ Electron Microscopy Laboratory, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, Gdansk, Poland.
⁴ Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Science, Warsaw, Poland.
⁵ Faculty of Applied Physics and Mathematics, Gdansk University of Technology, Narutowicza, Gdansk, Poland; Advanced Materials Center, Gdansk University of Technology, Narutowicza, Gdansk, Poland.

PMID: 36878075
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.02.129

Abstract

ZnIn₂S₄ (ZIS) is one of the widely studied photocatalyst for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution applications due to its prominent visible light response and strong reduction ability. However, its photocatalytic glycerol reforming performance for hydrogen evolution has never been reported. Herein, the visible light driven BiOCl@ZnIn₂S₄ (BiOCl@ZIS) composite was synthesized by growth of ZIS nanosheets on a template-like hydrothermally pre-prepared wide-band-gap BiOCl microplates using simple oil-bath method to be used for the first time for photocatalytic glycerol reforming for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution (PHE) under visible light irradiation (λ > 420 nm). The optimum amount of BiOCl microplates in the composite was found 4 wt% (4% BiOCl@ZIS) in the presence of in-situ 1 wt% Pt deposition. Then, the in-situ Pt photodeposition optimization studies over 4% BiOCl@ZIS composite showed the highest PHE rate of 674 μmol g^-1h^-1 with the ultra-low platinum amount (0.0625 wt%). The possible mechanisms behind this improvement can be ascribed to the formation of Bi₂S₃ low-band-gap semiconductor during BiOCl@ZIS composite synthesis resulting in Z-scheme charge transfer mechanism between ZIS and Bi₂S₃ upon visible light irradiation. This work expresses not only the photocatalytic glycerol reforming over ZIS photocatalyst but also a solid proof of the contribution of wide-band-gap BiOCl photocatalysts to enhancement of ZIS PHE performance under visible light.

Keywords: BiOCl; Photocatalysis; Photocatalytic glycerol reforming; Photocatalytic hydrogen evolution; Z-scheme; ZnIn2S4.