Single crystalline quaternary sulfide nanobelts for efficient solar-to-hydrogen conversion

Although solar-driven water splitting on semiconductor photocatalysts is an attractive route for hydrogen generation, there is a lack of excellent photocatalysts with high visible light activity. Due to their tunable bandgaps suitable for superior visible-light absorption, copper-based quaternary su...

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Published inNature communications Vol. 11; no. 1; pp. 5194 - 8
Main Authors Wu, Liang, Wang, Qian, Zhuang, Tao-Tao, Li, Yi, Zhang, Guozhen, Liu, Guo-Qiang, Fan, Feng-Jia, Shi, Lei, Yu, Shu-Hong
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London Nature Publishing Group UK 15.10.2020
Nature Portfolio
Subjects
140/146
147/143
147/3
639/301/299/890
639/301/357/1016
639/925/357/551
Humanities and Social Sciences
multidisciplinary
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
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Summary:Although solar-driven water splitting on semiconductor photocatalysts is an attractive route for hydrogen generation, there is a lack of excellent photocatalysts with high visible light activity. Due to their tunable bandgaps suitable for superior visible-light absorption, copper-based quaternary sulfides have been the important candidates. Here, we first assessed the preferred facet of wurtzite Cu-Zn-In-S for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction using the relevant Gibbs free energies determined by first principle calculation. We then developed a colloidal method to synthesize single crystalline wurtzite Cu-Zn-In-S nanobelts (NBs) exposing (0001) facet with the lowest reaction Gibbs energy, as well as Cu-Zn-Ga-S NBs exposing (0001) facet. The obtained single crystalline Cu-Zn-In-S and Cu-Zn-Ga-S NBs exhibit superior hydrogen production activities under visible-light irradiation, which is composition-dependent. Our protocol represents an alternative surface engineering approach to realize efficient solar-to-chemical conversion of single crystalline copper-based multinary chalcogenides. Quaternary sulfides are important candidates for solar-to-H 2 conversion due to tunable bandgaps for controllable light absorption. Here, authors prepare single crystalline wurtzite Cu-Zn-In-S and Cu-Zn-Ga-S nanobelts with (0001) facets that show strong photocatalytic H 2 production performances.
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ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/s41467-020-18679-z