Excellent Charge Separation of NCQDs/ZnS Nanocomposites for the Promotion of Photocatalytic H2 Evolution

Panpan Wu; Haizhen Liu; Ziyu Xie; Linjun Xie; Guozhong Liu; Yingchao Xu; Jing Chen; Can-Zhong Lu

doi:10.1021/acsami.3c15957

Excellent Charge Separation of NCQDs/ZnS Nanocomposites for the Promotion of Photocatalytic H₂ Evolution

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2024 Apr 3;16(13):16601-16611. doi: 10.1021/acsami.3c15957. Epub 2024 Mar 19.

Authors

Panpan Wu^{1

2

3

4}, Haizhen Liu^{2

3

5}, Ziyu Xie^{2

3}, Linjun Xie^{2

3}, Guozhong Liu^{2

3}, Yingchao Xu^{1

4}, Jing Chen^{2

3}, Can-Zhong Lu^{2

3

6}

Affiliations

¹ School of Optoelectronics and Communication Engineering, Xiamen University of Technology, Xiamen 361024, China.
² CAS Key Laboratory of Design and Assembly of Functional Nanostructures, and Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Nanomaterials, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fuzhou 350002, Fujian, China.
³ Xiamen Institute of Rare-earth Materials, Haixi Institutes, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen 361021, China.
⁴ Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Technology and Devices, Xiamen University of Technology, Xiamen 361024, China.
⁵ College of Chemistry and Materials Science, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou 350007, China.
⁶ University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.

PMID: 38502203
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.3c15957

Abstract

Carbon Quantum dots (CQDs) are widely studied because of their good optical and electronic characteristics and because they can easily generate photocarriers. Nitrogen-doped CQDs (NCQDs) may exhibit improved hydrophilic, optical, and electron-transfer properties, which are conducive to photocatalytic hydrogen evolution. In this paper, NCQD-modified ZnS catalysts were successfully prepared. Under the irradiation of the full spectrum, the H₂ evolution rate of the optimal catalyst 0.25 wt % NCQDs/ZnS achieves 5.70 mmol g^-1 h^-1, which is 11.88, 43.84, and 5.14 times the values of ZnS (0.48 mmol g^-1 h^-1), NCQDs (0.13 mmol g^-1 h^-1), and CQDs/ZnS (1.11 mmol g^-1 h^-1), respectively. Furthermore, it shows good stability, indicating that the modification of NCQDs prevents the photocorrosion and oxidation of ZnS. The enhanced performance is due to NCQD loading, which promotes the separation of photogenerated carriers, optimizes the structures, and increases the specific surface area. This work highlights the fact that NCQD-modified ZnS may afford a new strategy to synthesize ZnS-based photocatalysts with enhanced H₂ production performance.

Keywords: ZnS; mechanism; nitrogen-doped carbon quantum dots (NCQDs); photocatalytic H2 production; simulated solar light.