Inter-plane heterojunctions within 2D/2D FeSe2/g-C3N4 nanosheet semiconductors for photocatalytic hydrogen generation

By J. Jia, Wenjuan Sun, Qiqi Zhang, Xiaozhuo Zhang, Xiaoyun Hu, E. Liu, Jun Fan. 2020

227 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Developing and designing a robust hydrogen generation photocatalyst for water splitting remains a huge challenge for realizing highly effective conversion of solar energy into chemical fuel. Herein, two-dimensional FeSe2/g-C3N4 inter-plane heterostructures (2D/2D FeSe2/CNNS) were rationally constructed via the in-situ deposition of FeSe2 nanosheets on the g-C3N4 surface. The resulting 15% FeSe2/CNNS 2D/2D composite exhibited an optimal H2 generation rate of 1655.6 μmol∙h−1 ∙g−1 in Na2S/Na2SO3 solution, being nearly 2.65, 1.73 and 1.19 times higher than that of pristine g-C3N4, FeSe2 and corresponding 0D/2D FeSe2/CNNS nanocrystals, respectively. Such remarkably improved photocatalytic performance could be ascribed to efficient charge carrier mobility, acceleration of H2O2 decomposition via a stepwise two-electron/two-step pathway, and the formed 2D heterojunction interfacial contact between g-C3N4 and FeSe2 nanosheets. This work can provide new insight for designing atomic-level structural and interfacial 2D nanojunctions to steer charge separation and transportation in the nanocomposite.

Subfields: Materials Chemistry, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/40d201226af7877fdff0b3b6918776fae9e7364d