Building a direct Z-scheme heterojunction photocatalyst by ZnIn2S4 nanosheets and TiO2 hollowspheres for highly-efficient artificial photosynthesis

By Qin Li, Yang Xia, Chaosi Yang, K. Lv, Ming Lei, Mei Li. Chemical Engineering Journal, 2018

193 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Facing the requirement of modern industrial development, selective reduction of 4-nitroaniline (4-NA) into p-phenylenediamine (PPD) via a facile, economic and eco-friendly photocatalysis technique has attracted more and more attention in recent years. In this study, ZnIn 2 S 4 (ZIS) nanosheets grew in-situ on the surface of TiO 2 hollowspheres through a hydrothermal method and formed a direct Z-scheme heterojunction composite, which exhibited exceedingly better photocatalytic 4-NA reduction performance than bare ZIS and TiO 2 . Such enhancement was mainly attributed to the dissimilar dimensionalities, intimate contact, and matchable band edge positions between ZIS and TiO 2 semiconductors. Moreover, the substantial mechanism for the photocatalytic reaction in the ZIS/TiO 2 system was reasonably proposed. Inspired by recent applications of the Z-scheme heterostructured materials in solar energy conversion and artificial photosynthesis, this work would arouse an increasing interest in designing more Z-scheme photocatalyst systems with high efficiency and extensive applications.

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

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ee5bf6ba063952acdfe37928ea77f346f99bf223